One lobbyist told Inside Mortgage Finance this week he believes that Watt eventually will strike a deal on the issue with Treasury, but he was uncertain how it might play out.
The Home Affordable Refinance Program was arguably one of the most successful initiatives aimed at delivering consumer relief in the wake of the housing meltdown. It’s proving hard to kill. The Federal Housing Finance Agency this week extended HARP for another year, until the end of 2018. It was slated to sunset at the end of this year. The program has been extended several times since it was authorized back in 2009. The extra year is...
Commercial banks and savings institutions continued to stockpile agency MBS during the second quarter of 2017 with a strong appetite for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pass-through securities. Total bank investment in residential MBS rose by $36.28 billion during the second quarter, lifting the industry’s aggregate portfolio to a record $1.799 trillion. Bank MBS holdings have risen steadily since the third quarter of 2014, growing by $264.07 billion over that period. In addition to those held-to-maturity and available-for-sale accounts, about a dozen banks held $16.34 billion of residential MBS in trading accounts. All of the growth has been...[Includes two data tables]
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are still titans in the residential MBS market when it comes to making new securities, but they have been forced to the sidelines as investors over nine years in conservatorship. The two government-sponsored enterprises held a combined $221.48 billion of residential MBS at the end of June. Firm numbers on the total volume of MBS outstanding at that point aren’t available yet, but it’s unlikely that Fannie and Freddie held more than 3.5 percent of the market. The two GSEs reduced...[Includes one data table]
The average daily trading volume in agency MBS fell to just $200.5 billion in July, the weakest reading of the year, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. Compared to the prior month, MBS trading fell by 4.5 percent. The strongest month of the year came in January at $229.8 billion. In general, a lower reading on average daily trading volume means...
RSS