The MGIC Investment Corp. reported its second straight profitable quarter in 2013 and another increase in new insurance written. While the numbers may not yet indicate a trend, it certainly appears that the Milwaukee-based mortgage insurer is slowly but consistently showing improvement in its performance since posting a net loss of $246.9 million for the same quarter a year ago. MGIC reported net income of $12.1 million in the third quarter and $12.4 million in the second quarter, compared with a net loss of ...
Bucking the stampede of mortgage- and housing-industry interests campaigning against a cut in the conforming loan limits for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the American Securitization Forum is urging the Federal Housing Finance Agency to go ahead and shrink the footprint of the two government-sponsored enterprises. The ASF urged the FHFA to use its authority to at least marginally reduce GSE loan limits to lessen Fannies and Freddies vice grip on the mortgage market finance market and encourage the return of private capital. Such marginal reductions in conforming loan limits would appropriately increase...
Its no secret that Fannie Mae this year has been pushing some of its newly minted seller/servicers to use the cash window as opposed to swap MBS transactions, but the government-sponsored enterprise may be weighing an either/or policy. A spokesman for the GSE told Inside MBS & ABS that he has no knowledge of such a stern choice being given to Fannie customers, but he noted that the secondary market giant continues to wonder why so many new seller/servicers have MBS contracts, but do not actively issue. He said...
Fannie Mae said this week it is all set for meeting the 2013 risk-sharing goal set by its conservator for each of the government-sponsored enterprises after announcing back-to-back risk-sharing deals over the last two weeks. Fannie this week priced a $675 million bond offering under its Connecticut Avenue Securities series. The deal is backed by a reference pool of more than 112,000 single-family mortgages with an outstanding unpaid principal balance of $27 billion. The company late last week reported...
Residential mortgage delinquency rates have turned around nicely from their worst levels in the wake of the financial crisis, but mortgage servicer timelines continue to increase, according to recent findings by industry analysts. The improvement in the broad U.S. economy in general, and the steady decline of the unemployment rate and the strong rebound of the housing market in particular, have significantly reduced the residential mortgage serious-delinquency rate across all credit spectrums, Deutsche Bank analysts said in a report issued last week. Delinquency rates have declined...
More than one in five loans originated today wont satisfy the criteria for safe harbor legal protections as qualified mortgages under the ability-to-repay rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to an analysis by ComplianceEase.
In the third quarter of 2013, Wells Fargo sold a mere $8.4 billion in residential mortgages to Freddie Mac, a 71.3 percent plunge in volume from the second quarter, and a figure that represents just 17 percent of what the nations largest lender sold to Fannie Mae.
Although the credit characteristics of Fannie/Freddie purchase mortgages have remained fairly consistent over the year, there were some signs of loosening.