A structural change in Freddie Mac’s popular Structured Agency Credit Risk transfer program gives Freddie less credit protection at higher loss levels, according to an analysis of the GSE’s first STACR deal of the year. So far, this year, Freddie has priced STACR Series 2017-DNA1 on Jan. 31 and STACR Series 2017-HQA1 on Feb. 14. The first deal of the year was an $802 million STACR debt notes offering referencing mortgages with low loan-to-value ratios ranging from 60 to 80 percent. This particular deal has a reference pool of single-family mortgages with an unpaid principal balance of about $33.9 billion.

Freddie’s First NPL Sale of 2017. Freddie Mac announced its first nonperforming loan sale of the year last week, a $759 million auction of seasoned non-performing residential whole loans. The NPLs are currently serviced by Nationstar Mortgage LLC and Specialized Loan Servicing LLC. This is also Freddie Mac’s second multi-servicer NPL transaction. The NPLs are being marketed via five pools: four Standard Pool Offerings and one Extended Timeline Pool Offering, which targets participation by smaller investors, including non-profits and minority and women-owned businesses. HARP Refi Volume Slow in 4Q. The Federal Housing Finance Agency reported that 13,220 borrowers refinanced their mortgages through the Home Affordable Refinance Program...

Distress in the housing market has an impact on the location and types of jobs individuals are willing to take, according to research by the National Bureau of Economic Research. During the most recent recession, distressed borrowers tended to apply for fewer jobs that required relocation and looked for lower-level positions, according to an NBER working paper by Jennifer Brown of the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia and David Matsa of ...

Commercial banks and savings institutions reported a combined $5.479 billion in net income from mortgage-banking activity during the fourth quarter of 2016, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of call-report data. The industry’s mortgage-banking income was up 5.8 percent from the third quarter, lifting the total for the year to $17.544 billion. That was down 4.6 percent from 2015. Bank of America ranked as the top earner in ... [Includes one data chart]

Mortgage balances, the largest component of household debt, rose during the fourth quarter of 2016 as more households took on new mortgage debt during the period, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The NY Fed’s latest quarterly report on household debt and credit said balances on basic household debt rose in the fourth quarter due partly to stronger, new extensions of mortgage credit. Specifically, mortgage balances shown on consumer credit ...

Redwood CEO Marty Hughes said pricing for jumbo MBS is currently strong, with execution on issuance better than execution for whole loan sales.

Average credit scores in the FHA program drifted slightly lower, while climbing 1.9 points for VA loans.

Meanwhile, selling Ginnie Mae receivables is still a difficult task…

Moody’s said many of the contributors to the MBS are small, regional entities that lack the sophistication of larger, more established originators.

“Since reaching a trough in mid-2013, the rebound in household debt has been led by student debt and auto debt, with only sluggish growth in mortgage debt,” said one New York Fed official.