The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued two new compliance guides but is warning that they are not substitutes for the underlying rules.

Community banks are getting slapped with a "low activity" fee from Freddie Mac and the ICBA is not happy.

When interest rates rise, so do the value of mortgage servicing rights.

In a new filing with the SEC, Walter Investment said it discovered that its new reverse subsidiary had failed to record certain servicing errors.

Will cash-out refinancings ever return? Meanwhile, a new petition posted on the White House website that might helps GSE shareholders is taking off.

The bipartisan legislation to replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that’s taking shape in the Senate would leverage key reform projects already underway at the government-sponsored enterprises, but it doesn’t tackle some of the key transition issues the market would face by putting the GSEs out of business. The reform plan being put together by Sens. Bob Corker, R-TN, and Mark Warner, D-VA, has at its core the risk-sharing projects currently being designed by the GSEs, according to a copy of the draft legislation provided to Inside MBS & ABS. The Secondary Mortgage Market Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act of 2013 would also implement the common securitization platform that Fannie and Freddie are building under the direction of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The legislation would put...

A slowdown in production at Freddie Mac was the main factor behind a decline in total agency MBS issuance in May, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis. A total of $148.28 billion of single-family agency MBS were issued last month, down 2.6 percent from April’s level. May was the slowest month for agency MBS issuance so far in 2013, with slightly less volume than March’s $148.35 billion. Freddie’s production was...[Includes one data chart]

At least 170 non-agency MBS serviced by Ocwen Financial took combined losses of more than $1.0 billion in May due to accounting for principal forbearance that occurred before July 2012. The reporting issue allowed mezzanine bonds to continue receiving interest payments, and industry participants are concerned that the accounting could be an issue on other non-agency MBS. Moody’s Investors Service said the newly realized losses relate to loss mitigation by Homeward Residential. Ocwen acquired Homeward at the end of 2012. The servicing transfer prompted a disclosure by Ocwen to Wells Fargo, the trustee on the deals previously serviced by Homeward, in the May remittance reports on the deals. Wells said...

Thanks to rising home values and lower delinquencies, investors are gobbling up subprime MBS, causing prices to rise.

By excluding from the points and fees calculation compensation paid by creditors and mortgage brokers to their employees, the bureau prevents some double counting.