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...

It’s 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...

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 Fannie’s and Freddie’s “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...

Five federal regulatory agencies have issued a joint proposed rule to implement certain provisions of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 regarding private flood insurance, escrow of flood insurance payments and forced-placement of flood insurance. The proposal would affect loans secured by property in a special flood hazard area (SFHA), which is defined as an area within a floodplain having a one percent or greater chance of flooding in any given year. The rash of catastrophic flooding seen in recent years across the country has underscored the need for stronger flood insurance regulations. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Reserve Board, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Farm Credit Administration and the National Credit Union Administration are revising...

The so-called QM Plus alternative for defining qualified residential mortgages under the emerging risk-retention rule for asset securitizations threatens the intent of the Dodd-Frank Act to balance consumer protection and fair access to credit, a top industry official said last week. “We really think that the QM Plus provision goes way too far in tipping the balance” between consumer protection and access to credit, David Stevens, president and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association, said during a webinar last week sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance. The revised risk-retention/QRM rule jointly released by a handful of federal agencies in August would align...

After years of claiming that regulatory uncertainty was holding back mortgage originations, lenders appeared to be on their way toward certainty as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau established a definition for qualified mortgages at the beginning of this year. However, industry participants suggest that few originations of non-QMs are likely in the next few years due to uncertainty regarding litigation. “We don’t know how the courts are going to interpret the rule,” Jon Wishnia, a partner at the law firm of Lowenstein Sandler, said last week at the ABS East conference sponsored by Information Management Network in Miami. “That will really drive where the market goes.” CFPB officials have said...

Golf is for slackers. Inside Mortgage Finance knows of at least four veteran mortgage banking executives who, after “retiring,” are looking to reenter the business.

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 nation’s largest lender sold to Fannie Mae. Analysts that closely follow Wells Fargo believe that the megabank’s switch in secondary market strategy was simply a matter of money, as securitizing through Fannie was more profitable than sending most of its business to Freddie, as it traditionally has. Moshe Orenbuch, an analyst and managing director at Credit Suisse, noted...

For the nation’s three largest originators of home mortgages – Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America – the third quarter of 2013 turned out the way most observers expected, with slumping production, less revenue and tighter profit margins. The three major lenders, which accounted for almost 30 percent of loan originations in the first half of the year, saw big drops in refinance volume. Although they all unveiled plans to cut thousands of mortgage jobs, efforts to trim expenses did not come fast enough. Wells Fargo said...