Recent remarks by Craig Phillips, counselor to the secretary of the Treasury Department, suggest that the Trump administration supports proposals to reduce regulatory burdens in the MBS and ABS markets. The agency is in the process of finding regulations that can be “clarified, modified or tailored” to help boost the housing market. “We believe it’s time to assess whether regulatory requirements have unnecessarily tightened the credit box for new originations,” Phillips said at a credit-risk transfer symposium in New York City. “Regulatory requirements have also contributed to increased cost in servicing. Capital and liquidity standards have put private-label securitization at a disadvantage.” The Structured Finance Industry Group noted...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both announced new re-performing loan sale transactions this month as the two government-sponsored enterprises look for ways to shed illiquid assets. Fannie began marketing its first re-performing loan sale back in November to help reduce its balance sheet. The program continues to gain more traction with each sale. That first sale totaled $789.2 million in unpaid principal balance. Fannie has since announced...

In years past, RPM has been a selective buyer of mostly smaller shops.

Large servicers of jumbo mortgages continued to increase their holdings in the first quarter of 2017, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. And delinquency performance improved on already low levels. The unpaid principal balance of jumbo mortgages serviced by a group of 30 companies hit $935.70 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2017, up 1.6 percent from the previous quarter and up 8.4 percent ... [Includes one data chart]

Data regarding subprime mortgages outstanding, delinquencies and loss mitigation activity are getting more difficult to track as the market has essentially been in runoff mode since 2009.Few servicers report on their subprime portfolios, a key delinquency data series was recently discontinued and details on loan modifications are lagging. Some $247.0 billion of subprime mortgages were outstanding as of the end of the first quarter of 2017 ... [Includes one data chart]

If Trump is successful, presumably the money would flow through to the bottom line of Fannie and Freddie and counted toward earnings.

The Financial Services Roundtable called for changes to FHA’s legal liability standards to encourage banks to make more FHA loans. Increased risks of False Claims Act enforcement and concerns about multi-million dollar penalties even for the slightest underwriting errors have forced banks to restrict their FHA lending. The top 10 FHA lenders, once dominated by banks, are now nondepository institutions, which accounted for 83 percent of FHA forward originations in the first quarter of 2017. Wells Fargo, once the leader in FHA lending, has dropped to a woeful 20th place in the rankings. “Some federal officials have expressed concern about the capacity of the government to evaluate the qualifications of lenders that are not subject to regulation by federal agencies,” the FSR said. The group also noted the credit overlays many FHA lenders have added to the loans due to ...

Loan processing for incompetent veterans presents significant challenges to VA lenders, requiring strict compliance with special guidance on top of the basic VA underwriting rules. One challenge is dealing with legal appointees who assist and represent veterans in legal transactions, such as applying for a mortgage loan. There are ways to determine whether a veteran is incompetent, said Mark Jamison, loan production officer (LPO) with the VA Cleveland Regional Center, during the VA Lender Conference in Kansas City, MO, last month. The Department of Veterans Affairs or a probate court can deem a veteran incompetent due to severe injury, medical conditions, mental disorders, and financial instability, he said. A mortgage lender could make a determination of incompetency if the initial purchase contract documents were signed by an attorney-in-fact, the veteran divulged the incompetency, or the ...

Poor agency oversight of voluntary lender terminations of FHA insurance on single-family home loans has resulted in increased risk for borrowers, premium overpayments and inaccurate records, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s inspector general. The IG gave the department a poor grade for failing to ensure that lenders properly processed voluntary terminations of FHA coverage and disclosed to borrowers the implications of such termination. The audit report blamed HUD’s failure on its inability to detect and deter lender errors while processing voluntary terminations, causing borrowers to lose FHA-insurance protection and overpay FHA premiums. HUD’s records also were skewed because of the oversight, the report noted. IG auditors reviewed a statistical sample of 115 of the 3,690 loans that were terminated voluntarily by lenders during fiscal years 2015 and ...

One constitutional issue that garnered some attention: whether a multi-member commission is more legitimate than a single director…