Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders claimed that recently unsealed government documents support their contention that the main goal of the Treasury Department’s quarterly sweep of the government-sponsored enterprises’ earnings was to keep the two GSEs in conservatorship. Officials from Treasury have consistently said that the sweep was designed to prevent the two mortgage giants from collapsing. But the latest batch of 33 confidential emails and memos released under court order in the case of Fairholme Funds vs. United States seems to illustrate otherwise. The documents were unsealed...
Loans collateralized by multifamily properties experienced the biggest increase in the delinquency rate among commercial property types during the month of June, rising 133 basis points to 4.10 percent, according to a new CMBS report from Moody’s Investors Service. But it may not be as bad, sector-wise, as it appears at first glance. “The difference was due mainly to two newly delinquent loans, both multifamily portfolios in the MLMT 2007-C1 transaction,” explained Kevin Fagan, a vice president and senior analyst with the ratings service. “Assuming these loans were current, the multifamily delinquency rate for June would be 2.57 percent.” Delinquency rates increased...
JPMorgan launched a new index this week aimed at connecting with clients looking to invest in Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae MBS. The company said it is the first institutional agency mortgage index built on individual security valuations. The index, referred to as MAX, is billed as a “contemporary and comprehensive” benchmark of the agency MBS market. It combines 30-year, 15-year and 20-year MBS in an index that the bank says contains more than 400 aggregates that cover almost 85 percent of the agency market. And because it updates from the sixth business day of the month instead of the 15th, as most other indices do, JPMorgan said the MAX reduces a number of tracking errors. “Agency MBS is...
Wells Fargo remained the top producer of first-lien mortgages with a hefty 27.1 percent increase from the first quarter, gaining ground on all of its nearest competitors.
“While originations to-date have been nominal, we expect a ramp-up production from here as we continue to increase marketing and consumer awareness of the Ally Home offering,” Christopher Halmy said.
A number of lenders have experienced a sharp decline in refinance volume without a meaningful increase in purchase-mortgage originations, according to Jonathan Corr, president and CEO of Ellie Mae.
Large banks continue to dominate the business of servicing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac home loans, but a group of hard-charging non-depository institutions are gaining ground. A new Inside The GSEs analysis of Fannie and Freddie mortgage-backed securities disclosures shows that total single-family MBS outstanding actually declined slightly, by 0.1 percent, during the second quarter. This was due to a 0.3 percent drop in Fannie MBS servicing – the figures do not include servicing of whole loans held by the enterprises – while the Freddie market grew 0.3 percent. Some 46.2 percent of Fannie/Freddie MBS servicing was held by banking organizations with more than $100 billion in assets. That included four of the top five GSE servicers and seven of the top 10.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency published a progress report on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac credit-risk transfer programs this week. The report covered the first quarter and showed that together the GSEs transferred $5.5 billion worth of credit risk during the first three months of the year.The risk was transferred on mortgage loans with $174 billion in unpaid principal balance. That’s a good start to 2017 being on track with the $18.1 billion the GSEs transferred in all of 2016 on mortgages with $548 billion in UPB. Debt issuance was the largest category of CRTs, accounting for 77 percent. Reinsurance transactions followed, but represented a much smaller 19 percent share.