Fannie Mae last month implemented changes to its Desktop Underwriter program following a surge in acquisition mortgages with high debt-to-income ratios that caused an uproar with some private mortgage insurers. In July 2017, the GSE revised its underwriting guidelines to accept DTI ratios over 45 percent without requiring lenders to show compensating factors. As previously reported by Inside The GSEs, the change led to a surge in high-DTI activity in the second half of 2017. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securitized $52.90 billion of mortgages with DTI ratios ranging from 46 percent to 50 percent, a 72.6 percent increase from the first six months of the year.

Fannie Mae Announces New Board Member. Christopher Herbert was elected as a director on the company’s board of directors. The GSE noted that he has extensive experience relating to housing policy and urban development. He’s been managing director for Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies since January 2015. The Final Nail in the GSE Reform Coffin: Creation of the $3B Capital Buffer? Although GSE reform appears to be dead in the current Congress, Fitch Ratings issued a report Tuesday predicting that MBS guarantors created in the future to replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be on solid ground financially. As for why GSE reform failed, Fitch contends...

The upside for private MIs is that their purchase business started off 2018 at a more robust level than last year…

SG Capital Partners focuses on loans with higher balances than other nonprime MBS aggregators.

On the plus side, Wedbush sees mortgage servicers and home builders benefitting…

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, the ranking member of the panel, would not acknowledge that Mulvaney is the head of the agency but asked him questions anyway.

Along with nearly all mortgage indicators, the flow of insured home loans into agency mortgage-backed securities slowed significantly during the first quarter of 2018, but early indicators suggest the FHA market may have been somewhat more resilient. [Includes three data charts.]

With mortgage production coming under pressure in early 2018, some lenders are doing what might seem chancy: paying large signing bonuses to top-producing loan officers.

With GSE reform all but dead, rumors about possible administrative changes abound...

The American Federation of Teachers has threatened to end a mortgage partnership with Wells Fargo unless the bank stops providing support and financial services to the National Rifle Association and gun manufacturers.