The ongoing uncertainty about the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is weighing on the mortgage industry and it’s only going to get worse with time, said the former head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency this week. Edward DeMarco, now a senior fellow in residence for the Milken Institute’s Center for Financial Markets, warned that with the government in effective control of the mortgage market, the risk grows of capital allocation and pricing decisions made through the prism of political calculation rather than due to sound, market driven principle.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s most recent settlement of non-agency mortgage-backed securities lawsuit has one consumer group seeing red as it claims taxpayers will ultimately get stuck with the cost of the bank’s multi-million dollar payout. Late last week, the FHFA announced a $550 million legal deal with HSBC North American Holdings, leaving just two civil cases tied to nonprime MBS issuance still unresolved.

There is little enthusiasm in the mortgage market for higher guaranty fees charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, various industry groups indicated in input letters to the GSEs’ regulator. In June, the Federal Housing Finance Agency issued a call for public comment on how the GSEs should calculate g-fees and whether the FHFA should proceed with a 10 basis point g-fee hike announced last year. In one of his first acts as FHFA director in January, Mel Watt postponed the g-fee hike pending further study.

A tremendous amount of uncertainty is causing mortgage lenders to be more restrictive with credit than they otherwise might be – mostly stemming from conflicts with investors, increased regulation and the ambiguity from major legal settlements. “Lenders are running scared,” said Paulina McGrath, president of Republic State Mortgage, during a conference sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center this week in Washington, DC. “It’s not just the regulation that’s causing a dramatic increase in ...

Mortgage lending has gained significant market share in the home-purchase market in recent months due to a pullback by investors, according to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. The combined market share for current homeowners and first-time homebuyers increased again in August, according to Tom Popik, research director of Campbell Surveys. The two groups accounted for 84.5 percent of the homes purchased in August, based on a three-month moving average ...

After a historically slow start to the year, mortgage originations and loan sales rebounded during the second quarter but remained tepid. Commercial banks and savings institutions reported a total of $140.07 billion of loans sold by their mortgage banking operations during the second quarter, according to an Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call-report data. That was up 11.4 percent from the dismal $125.71 billion in loan sales during the first three months of the year ... [Includes two data charts]

Almost across the board, the share prices of publicly traded mortgage companies are in the tank these days – and not just the “big three” nonbanks of Nationstar Mortgage, Ocwen Financial and Walter Investment Management. Stonegate Mortgage, for instance, which went public about a year ago, is trading at $14 a share compared to a 52-week high of almost $19 and a low of $12. PennyMac Financial Services is at $15, about $1 above its low and $5 below its high. And Impac Holdings ...

A housing counseling program funded with federal appropriations has helped reduce losses for servicers and helped borrowers, according to the Urban Institute. NeighborWorks America administers the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling program, which was launched in 2008. The Urban Institute tracked outcomes related to $172.56 million in funding for the NFMC program and determined that borrowers receiving counseling from the program realized $518 million in annual savings ...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s proposed capital requirements for private mortgage insurers would raise costs for borrowers but there is a need for new standards, according to industry group comments. The Mortgage Bankers Association, National Association of Realtors and several private MI companies have urged the Federal Housing Finance Agency to ease proposed capital requirements for private MIs.

Most mortgage lenders expect profit margins to remain steady in coming months, but more of them are bracing for reduced earnings and fewer anticipate increases than in the past, according to results from a Fannie Mae survey released this week. Just over half (51 percent) of the 185 participants said they expect profit margins on loan production activity to be unchanged in the next three months. But a third of the lenders predicted tighter margins, up from 29 percent in the previous survey, mostly because of ...