Mark Calabria, chief economist to Vice President Mike Pence, said the administration is in the early stages of looking at ways to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He also explained why he’s not a fan of the qualified mortgage “patch” during comments this week at a housing finance discussion hosted by the Urban Institute and CoreLogic. He said the Trump administration is committed to not handing Fannie and Freddie over in conservatorship to the next administration and that finding a path forward is just the beginning. “We will do a number of listening sessions to ask questions about what is the best way out of...

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt touted the evolution of the GSEs’ credit-risk transfer programs and said they continue to make progress on exploring new types of ways to transfer risk to the private sector.During remarks at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual conference in Denver last week, Watt said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now transfer a significant amount of credit risk on at least 90 percent of their targeted single-family loans. “The enterprises’ credit-risk transfer programs have leveraged a receptive private sector market and have made an incredible amount of progress in a really short period of time,” he said. Since 2013, they have transferred a portion of credit risk on $1.6 trillion of mortgages.

The Mortgage Bankers Association is worried about blurred lines between primary and secondary market activities when it comes to Federal Housing Finance Agency objectives, especially in the wake of new technologies. The trade group said there should be a clear separation of the two market activities. In response to the FHFA’s strategic plan for 2018 through 2022, the MBA said it will be important for the agency to make sure the GSEs only undertake activities that support secondary market liquidity, and not displace lenders and vendors operating in the primary single-family and multifamily finance markets.

Fannie Mae announced several new technologies last week, including one that will let lenders validate a borrower’s primary information in one step. Single Source Validation is currently in the pilot testing phase and will be incorporated into the GSE’s Desktop Underwriter tool in 2018. Through the program, lenders can validate a borrower’s income, assets and employment using a single asset report as the source data instead of scanning through a multitude of paper documents. Fannie said that this not only makes it easier to originate loans but it also helps curb costs. Speaking at the annual Mortgage Bankers Association convention in Denver last week, Fannie CEO Timothy Mayopoulos said...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s annual report on housing showed that Fannie Mae fell short of meeting two of its affordable housing goals for 2016. The GSE came close at 5.2 percent but did not meet the 5.4 percent benchmark goal for very-low income buyers purchasing single-family homes. Fannie also did not meet the goal for low-income buyers refinancing their mortgages. The goal was 19.8 percent and Fannie topped out at 19.5 percent. However, Fannie did meet the 22.9 percent low-income home-purchase goal and surpassed its low-income area home-purchase goal of 19.7 percent by 0.5 percent.

Most banks and thrifts continued to report solid earnings from their mortgage banking activities during the third quarter, but profits generally weakened and year-to-date performance clearly has not kept up with the pace set in 2016. A diverse group of 24 banks reported a combined $2.36 billion in mortgage banking income for the third quarter, down 11.3 percent from the previous period. Half of them posted declines. The group generated $7.33 billion in mortgage ... [Includes one data chart]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, despite opposition, will go ahead with its plan to add a language-preference question to the redesigned loan application for GSE loans. Although use of the form won’t be required by lenders until February 2020, one law firm is weighing in on its possible impact.The FHFA announced late last month that the question will be added to the loan application to enable borrowers who prefer to communicate in a language other than English to identify that language. The Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac regulator also said the revision is part of a broader, multi-year effort to improve language access for limited English proficiency (LEP) borrowers.

The industry’s shift toward originations of purchase mortgages could help mortgage brokers gain market share, according to industry analysts. “This is a much more promising sector of the business than it was three or four years ago,” James Modrycki, a vice president of correspondent sales at Impac Mortgage Holdings, said at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual convention in Denver. Brokers originated $87.0 billion of mortgages in the first half of 2017, accounting for ...

A lender doesn’t have to be one of the big dogs in the industry to be competitive, thanks to continuing technological innovation. A case in point: Former U.S. Comptroller of the Currency Gene Ludwig and former Freddie Mac Chief Operating Officer Bruce Witherell have formed a new company in the mortgage technology and fulfillment solutions spaces, Promontory MortgagePath, which just rolled out what it’s touting as the next generation of point-of-sale solutions for lenders ...

It’s been less than two weeks since Mortgage Bankers Association CEO Dave Stevens surprised the industry by announcing his retirement next fall – and already speculation is mounting about his successor. One participant involved in the effort said the trade group is looking to hire at least two private firms to aid in the search, which is being managed internally. MBA members, speaking under the condition of anonymity, laid out a few parameters for the job: first and foremost, the likely ...