After a couple of slow weeks, there appears to be renewed interest among investors looking to buy mortgage servicing rights, but in certain markets caution is being expressed regarding properties where hurricane damage might be an issue. In mid-September, Fannie Mae issued a bulletin temporarily suspending servicing transfers involving properties located within designated disaster areas. A week after the Sept. 13 bulletin was issued, Fannie clarified to market participants that the bulletin was meant as guidance and not a firm directive or prohibition on MSR transfers. According to Incenter Mortgage Advisors, Denver, some sellers of Fannie receivables “elected...

Anecdotal and empirical evidence confirm that mortgage lenders are continuing to lighten up on their underwriting criteria. The loosening may not be as pronounced as it was in the run-up to the financial crisis, but there are concerns that it will intensify as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates. Fannie Mae’s latest mortgage lender sentiment survey found that more lenders said they have eased credit standards than tightened them, something the government-sponsored enterprise attributed to limited demand for residential finance and a negative outlook on profit margins. “The net share of lenders reporting easing of credit standards over the prior three months has continued...

Resolving the long-running conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is drawing a lot of attention, but policymakers and industry groups don’t seem any closer to a consensus. For the most part, the executive branch and many groups representing large financial institutions want Congress to tackle the problem through legislation. Investors and some groups representing smaller lenders say the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Treasury could do more to pave the way. Motivating the debate is...

The mortgage servicing market maintained its steady growth pattern during the second quarter of 2017, inching up 0.7 percent to $10.430 trillion, according to new Federal Reserve data. That was the biggest number for mortgage debt outstanding since the first quarter of 2011, when the market stood at $10.439 trillion. Most of the growth has been in Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae servicing but portfolio holdings of whole loans are also on the upswing. There was...[Includes two data tables]

Keep in mind that Mel Watt’s term as Federal Housing Finance Agency director expires in January 2019...

Freddie Mac: “We are also specifying that an unlicensed or trainee (or similar classification) appraiser may perform a completion report…”

So far, speculation regarding a change in the GSE dividend payment has been dead wrong, but there’s still time...

FHFA Director Mel Watt is concerned about zero capital, but has not yet given any public indication he will do something about it...

All of the uptick in seller buybacks came from Fannie, where repurchases surged 21.5 percent from the first to the second quarter.

Mortgage lenders that sell loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw a modest increase in the volume of loans they repurchased from the GSEs during the second quarter of 2017, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis of disclosure reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. During the second quarter, lenders repurchased or made indemnifications on $244.44 million of single-family loans pooled in Fannie and Freddie mortgage-backed securities. That was up 2.5 percent from the first three months of the year. On a year-to-date basis, seller buybacks totaled $483.01 million, a 14.5 percent drop from the first six months of 2016.