Fannie Mae has been actively buying delinquent mortgages out of MBS trusts and plans to eventually issue securities collateralized by the loans, said Timothy Mayopoulos, CEO of the government-sponsored enterprise. During a recent earnings call and question-and-answer period with the press, the CEO noted that the GSE has bought a “substantial” number of mortgages out of trusts with the goal of making them performing again. “Over the next year or two,” Fannie will...

Disclosure requirements for publicly-registered ABS have prompted fewer investor-friendly changes than might have been expected, according to analysts at Moody’s Investors Service. The Securities and Exchange Commission adopted the so-called Regulation AB2 disclosure rule in August 2014 and a number of issuers have filed Form SF-3 registration statements in compliance with the rule. “Very few issuers have provided additional collateral and/or performance information beyond the data they were already disclosing prior to SF-3 registration statement requirements,” Moody’s said of auto ABS issuers. The rating service said...

The California Supreme Court late last week issued a ruling in a case where a borrower challenged the foreclosure of a loan that was included in a non-agency MBS issued in 2007. The court allowed the borrower’s claims to proceed, which could prompt a significant increase in foreclosure-related litigation for California mortgages in non-agency MBS. An opinion authored by Kathryn Werdegar, an associate justice of the California Supreme Court, stresses that the court’s ruling in Yvanova v. New Century Mortgage is narrow. “We hold only that a borrower who has suffered a non-judicial foreclosure does not lack standing to sue for wrongful foreclosure based on an allegedly void assignment merely because he or she was in default on the loan and was not a party to the challenged assignment,” Werdegar said. The ruling left...

The unexpected decline in mortgage rates this year has moved a significant portion of the agency MBS market into the zone where it’s worthwhile for borrowers to refinance, according to a new analysis of agency MBS data by Inside MBS & ABS. As of the end of December, some 24.4 percent of loans backing Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae MBS had mortgage rates ranging from 4.01 percent to 4.50 percent. Altogether, $1.500 trillion of existing single-family mortgages were in that bucket. According to Inside Mortgage Finance, the average offering rate for 30-year fixed-rate conventional mortgages this week was...[Includes one data table]

The subprime servicing sector is a shell of its former self, with the dollar volume of loans outstanding declining by 75.8 percent in the past nine years, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Loans originated during the subprime boom continue to pay off or go through foreclosure while new originations have been few and far between. An estimated $300.0 billion in subprime servicing was ... [Includes one data chart]

Major servicers participating in the non-agency portion of the Home Affordable Modification Program have improperly ended mods for a number of borrowers, according to data from the Treasury Department. The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program is urging the Treasury to take actions to prevent servicers from terminating mods that meet HAMP guidelines. “Treasury’s findings in its on-site visits to the largest seven mortgage servicers in HAMP over ...

One of those GSE watchers is Bose George of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, who told us: “I see no reason for the administration to negotiate in any meaningful way with the plaintiffs..."

FHA lenders are anticipating long-awaited guidance from the Department of Housing and Urban Development implementing sweeping changes related to reverse-mortgage borrowers in default for not paying their taxes and insurance. But don’t be surprised if HUD issues additional guidance before the implementation date, said James Wright, an attorney with Bradley Arant Boult Cummings’ Birmingham office. First announced in April 2015, the guidance sets...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has revised reasonable diligence timeframes in 32 jurisdictions and provided guidance on judicial foreclosure of FHA loans in the District of Columbia. The updated timeframes are effective for all cases in which the deadline for taking the first legal action in a foreclosure occurs on or after Jan. 1, 2016. The revised schedule of attorney fees is...

The Department of Veterans Affairs has entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to manage and market the latter’s inventory of real estate-owned single-family and multifamily properties. Mike Frueh, director of the VA Home Loan Guaranty Program, revealed the agreement during a recent hearing by the House Committee on Veterans Affairs on the state of program. Frueh told...