The Federal Housing Finance Agency this week filed a request to transfer lawsuits brought by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders in four district courts to the U.S. District Court in Washington. The government-sponsored enterprise regulator hopes to ward off future “copycat” cases and those where plaintiffs may be encouraged to “shop” for the best forum, based on the ruling. FHFA said it is certain that the number of pending complaints challenging the quarterly U.S. Treasury sweep of Fannie and Freddie net income will continue to grow. As a result, the agency said the transfer would be more efficient and benefit the parties and courts. “The claims and relief sought in each of the four related cases are...
Social Finance, the fledgling “marketplace” lender, is funding enough home mortgages on a monthly basis that it’s now scouting for opportunities in the secondary market, according to lending officials who have met with the firm’s management team. Among the options being considered is raising money to form a real estate investment trust, a vehicle that would provide a balance sheet where whole loans could reside. However, it’s unclear at this point if Social Finance, or “SoFi” as it is known, has any plans for securitizing residential product. Company officials including Michael Tannenbaum, who serves as vice president of mortgages for the startup, and William Jarve, in the firm’s capital markets group, declined...
Increases in demand on the FHA single-family program are having collateral implications for the integrity of Ginnie Mae’s MBS programs, including the potential for more fraud, warned the Department of Housing and Urban Development inspector general. Testifying during a recent Senate budget hearing, HUD Inspector General David Montoya said Ginnie issuer defaults historically have been infrequent, involving small to moderate-size issuers. “However, major unanticipated issuer defaults beginning in 2009 have led...
Republicans on Capitol Hill this past week expressed dismay with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recently transferring $180 million into federal affordable housing programs. In fact, 10-K filings by the two government-sponsored enterprises indicate Fannie has paid $217 million, and Freddie has turned over $165 million for a total of $382 million. By law, both GSEs are required...
When the two GSEs were losing money earlier in the decade, then-Acting FHFA Director Edward DeMarco suspended the contributions before any had ever been made.
The rash of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buyback demands that ravaged the mortgage industry a few years ago continued to ease in the fourth quarter of 2015, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of repurchase disclosures by the two government-sponsored enterprises. And although the focus of new GSE buyback demands continues to shift to newer books of business, Freddie still reports a relatively high volume of ... [Includes two data charts]
Mortgage banking ended a solid year of profitability in 2015 with a final quarter weakened by slumping production volume and added costs from the implementation of new TRID integrated disclosures. Average firm pretax income in the fourth quarter – for lenders of all sizes – was $1.190 million, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s latest Mortgage Banking Performance Report. That was down 30.0 percent from the third quarter and even further off ...
The employment market for retail loan officers – as well as loan brokers – continues to look promising, provided that interest rates remain low this spring and nothing comes along to spook new homebuyers. Moreover, new employment figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics seem to bear this out. In January – the latest figures available on residential finance hiring – mortgage brokerage firms nationwide added 2,100 full-time staffers, bringing total employment in the niche to 81,600, the highest reading in several years.
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