HFSC Continues to Seek Five-Member Commission for FHFA. During a full committee markup this week, the House Financial Services Committee voted to convert regulatory agencies currently headed by single directors, such as the Federal Housing Finance Agency, along with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, into bipartisan, five-member commissions. The HFSC voted to make the Treasury’s one-time GSE privatization study become an annual report/testimony. FHFA Publishes Open Government Plan 2016. The Federal Housing Finance Agency published a document this week highlighting some of the ways it plans to advance the principles of “transparency, participation and collaboration” through open communication and public engagement.

Meanwhile, as home equity originations improve, the outstanding supply of home-equity debt continues to decline.

All three panelists expressed the view that the nonprime market is safe from competition from the megabanks...

The third quarter has yet to end and the big question for the industry boils down to this: Will 3Q be better than 2Q?

Among other things, Fannie found that for 3Q16, more lenders expect to sell their mortgages to the GSEs rather than keeping them in portfolio.

Mortgage originators reported a sharp increase in home-equity lending during the second quarter of 2016, although it wasn’t as robust a gain as the 34.2 percent surge in first-lien originations. Lenders generated an estimated $53.5 billion in home-equity business during the second quarter, an increase of 18.9 percent from the first three months of the year. It was the strongest quarterly production number for the HEL market since the financial crisis. Halfway through 2016, home-equity lending was up 15.9 percent from last year and tracking toward $200 billion in annual production. Although home-equity lending has strengthened over the past few years as house prices have recovered to pre-crisis levels, the outstanding supply of home-equity debt continues...[Includes three data tables]

Retail lending through brick-and-mortar branches and consumer-direct programs was the biggest production channel in conventional mortgage lending but had a somewhat smaller share in government-insured lending, according to an exclusive analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance. Retail production played a dominant role in the jumbo market, where it accounted for 79.3 percent of originations over the 18-month period ending in June 2016. Correspondent production played a meaningful role, accounting for 16.1 percent of jumbo originations, but brokers (4.6 percent) had a relatively thin share of the jumbo market. Brokers’ strength was...[Includes one data table]

Some of the nation’s largest originators – including Quicken Loans, United Wholesale Mortgage and Freedom Mortgage – are reporting record originations for August, a boom that’s also resulting in headaches industry-wide: namely appraisal and underwriting delays. At this point, few are describing the delays as a crisis, but with September half over, certain originators fear that longer closing times will eat into profits while angering borrowers. “I have...

Warehouse money is available from commercial banks for nonprime home mortgages, but...

There is no clear explanation as to why VA rates are lower than the competition, but some industry participants, including Tom Piercy of Incenter Mortgage Advisors, speculate prepayments might be the reason.