Freddie Mac’s vice president of single-family business transformation is one of five industry innovators honored by the Mortgage Bankers Association with an MBA Insights Tech All-Star Award recognizing industry leaders who have made outstanding contributions in mortgage technology.

As first quarters go, the start to 2017 was relatively strong, but total issuance was down sharply from the previous period, a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking reveals. The market produced a total of $394.08 billion of residential MBS and non-mortgage ABS during the first three months of 2017, an 18.5 percent decline from the fourth quarter of last year. Production, however, was up 23.7 percent from the same period a year ago, and it was the strongest start since the first quarter of 2013, when agency mortgage refinance activity was running white-hot. In 2017, the agency MBS sector is...[Includes three data tables]

Fannie, Freddie and Ginnie securitized $156.80 billion of refi loans during 1Q17, down 35.1 percent sequentially, according to Inside MBS & ABS.

Single-family rental operator Invitation Homes expects to enter into its previously announced $1 billion financing agreement with Fannie Mae sometime in the second quarter, using the net proceeds to pay down loans racked up while issuing MBS. According to an update provided in a new 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Invitation – which went public earlier in the year – will “repay all remaining amounts outstanding under our mortgage loan relating to the IH1 2014-1 securitization and approximately $529.0 million of our mortgage loan relating to the IH1 2014-2 securitization.” Grubstaked by The Blackstone Group, IH has been...

Despite rumors to the contrary, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac forked over most of their fourth-quarter earnings to the Treasury Department at the end of March, as scheduled. But some industry insiders wonder whether the timing of future payments will be altered to reduce the likelihood that either of the government-sponsored enterprises might need another bailout. In early March, there were talks predicting, or hoping for everything from a possible suspension of the Treasury sweep to replacing the quarterly payment with an annual one. Speculation may have been fueled by uncertainty about what the Trump administration wants to do about the now eight-year-old conservatorships of the two GSEs. In 2017, Fannie and Freddie can only retain...

Fink is expected to leave Fannie Mae in the second half of the year.

One GSE watcher called it, "The biggest company quarterly profit since the Roman Empire, adjusted for inflation of course.”

Whether a potential homebuyer has a bachelor’s degree plays a significant role in the applicant’s ability to obtain a mortgage, according to research funded by Fannie Mae. The analysis suggests that the higher-education variable wasn’t much of a factor before the financial crisis, but a borrower’s level of education is a factor in post-crisis originations. Researchers at the University of Southern California probed data from a survey of households conducted by the Survey Research Center at ...

GSE originators have long complained that the rep-and-warrant policies need to be more transparent.

How much slack can the purchase market pick up? We’re about to find out…