Cowen notes: “…this latest flare up reinforces our view that Treasury is unlikely in 2017 to unilaterally change the profit sweep at Fannie and Freddie…”
Ginnie Mae production fell substantially in February from January as the government-insured lending market continued to lose steam in the first quarter of 2017. Ginnie mortgage-backed securities issuance fell 24.0 percent from January as fewer purchase and refinance loans were pooled for securitization, bringing February’s total issuance to just $32.2 billion. Year-over-year Ginnie MBS issuance, on the other hand, increased by 6.2 percent. The government-insured market set an all-time record of $545.0 billion in originations during 2016, a whopping 31.0 percent jump from the previous year. That total eclipsed previous records for originations of FHA, VA and rural housing loans guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, according to data compiled by affiliate Inside Mortgage Finance. In addition, government-insured lending accounted for a record ... [ 3 charts ]
Earlier this week, Flagstar closed on its purchase of the correspondent lending platform of Stearns Lending – a rare transaction where a depository was buying a key mortgage asset from a nonbank.
CFPB analyst Megan Thibos reminds consumers that, “During the foreclosure crisis, many borrowers with subprime mortgages faced sharply increased mortgage payments and were unable to make those payments.”