Is pre-approval truly the first step in loan origination? The folks at Churchill Mortgage do not think so. There is a common misconception about “pre-approval” and its importance in the lending process, says Matt Clarke, Churchill’s chief financial officer and chief operating officer. He views pre-approval as nothing more than taking a mortgage loan application and approving it for underwriting. …
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw declines in the flow of purchase and refinance loans into single-family mortgage-backed securities last month, starting 2018 on a sour note. The two GSEs produced a total of $67.48 billion of new single-family MBS in January, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis and ranking. That was down 8.8 percent from the previous month and off 26.4 percent from January 2017. It was the GSEs’ weakest monthly output since May 2017, and it would have been worse had Fannie not come up with $4.69 billion in mortgage securities backed by modified loans. Including those mod-backed deals, Fannie issuance was up 5.0 percent from December. Without them, the company’s new MBS issuance fell 5.7 percent in January.
The Community Home Lenders Association wants to make sure that small lender protections like preserving the cash window and limiting the number of guarantors in the market are included in GSE reform legislation. Late last week, the trade group sent a letter to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs about the importance of access for small lenders. “Fannie and Freddie must be preserved and recapitalized, pursuant to a utility model, with the capability to serve the entire small-lender market on fully competitive terms,” the letter said. CHLA said a utility model would work best for small lenders because it ensures their primary role of facilitating loan securitizations.
Retail mortgage-origination platforms tend to generate lower-risk mortgages than other channels, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of home loans delivered into Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities.