Preventing GSE guarantee fees from being used as income for unrelated government spending has been an ongoing battle. In the latest attempt to block this from happening, more than a dozen mortgage and housing groups sent a joint letter in support of the Risk Management and Homeowner Stability Act. H.R. 916, introduced by Reps. Mark Sanford, R-SC, and Brad Sherman, D-CA, was created to stop g-fees from being tapped for non-housing programs. The Mortgage Bankers Association, Community Mortgage Lenders of America, the American Bankers Association and U.S. Mortgage Insurers are among the 14 groups that signed the letter. They argue that increasing g-fees for other purposes imposes an...

The number of Freddie Mac mortgages that have fallen seriously delinquent or are in foreclosure dropped below 1 percent in January, the first time in close to a decade. Last week Freddie reported that the rate is significantly below the 3.13 percent rate for the entire mortgage market. The last time it was under 1 percent was in 2008, when it was .93 percent. It peaked at 4.20 percent two years later in 2010. It has gradually come down in subsequent years with the rate falling to 3.25 percent in 2012 and 1.88 percent in 2014. The seriously delinquent rate is for mortgage loans that are three or more monthly payments past due or are in foreclosure.

Fannie Mae’s second front-end credit risk sharing transaction is much larger than its first deal as it shifts a portion of the risk on about $15 billion worth of single-family loans. The inaugural front-end CRT announced in October, involved about $3.7 billion of single-family loans. These two transactions use credit insurance risk transfer on the front end of the transaction. Most of the GSEs’ CIRT transactions have involved insurance contracts on pools of loans that have already been securitized. This deal, like the first, will be completed on a flow basis with the risk transfer taking place before Fannie acquires the covered loans. And the insurance coverage will begin immediately after acquisition.

Freddie Hosts Employee Panel on Affordable Housing. In commemoration of Black History Month, Freddie Mac’s ARISE employee resource group invited all employees to a panel discussion on the company's commitment to affordable housing, particularly in the African-American community. The GSE said that the panelists began by discussing the importance of homeownership in all communities, while recognizing that there is a gap between white and non-white homeownership rates. Panelists discussed ways that Freddie is helping close this divide via programs including Home Possible mortgages that offer low downpayment options for low- to moderate– income homebuyers, reducing one of the financial barriers that impede African-American families from homeownership. And they talked about the GSE’s commitment to financing affordable rental properties. Investors Unite Podcast Launch.

Tricon Capital Group’s recent announcement that it plans to buy single-family rental operator Silver Bay Realty Trust for $1.4 billion in cash is a potential sign that this thriving sector could be in for a round of consolidation. Once the deal is completed, the combined SFR company will have 16,800 homes in its stable of rentals – 9,000 coming from Silver Bay and 7,800 coming from Tricon American Homes, the U.S. residential division of the Toronto-based TCG. Among SFR operators, TAH/SBRT will rank...

A common theme among housing finance reform proposals is to infuse more private capital into the system while not disrupting the market. Beyond that, the plans take significantly different approaches about what to do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Jim Parrott, senior fellow at the Urban Institute and the co-author of one of those proposals, released a paper this week comparing his plan with the revised proposal from the Mortgage Bankers Association and a blueprint described by the Milken Institute. The MBA proposed...

The correspondent lending channel was the big winner last year in terms of increased production and market share – at least in the conventional-conforming and jumbo sectors, according to a new analysis by Inside Mortgage Trends. Competition among the three main production channels evened out in the government-insured market. Correspondent production of conventional-conforming mortgages increased...

Homeowners over the age of 65 rarely use their mortgages to access their home equity, according to a new study by the Urban Institute and Fannie Mae. Even as a large number of seniors reported concerns about finances during retirement, Fannie noted that just 6 percent of older adult homeowners are interested in tapping their home equity. Relatively few seniors use FHA reverse mortgages, closed-end seconds, home-equity lines of credit and cash-out refinances to tap built-up home equity. One reason seniors hesitate...

According to an Inside Mortgage Finance analysis, Fannie and Freddie have passed along some $9.6 billion of MBS fees under the provisions of the 2011 Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act.

The jumbo mortgage market generally kept pace with the robust growth in first-lien originations last year, but the agency component clearly did better than the non-agency side, according to a newInside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. An estimated $534.57 billion of single-family mortgages with loan balances exceeding $417,000 were produced last year, an increase of 20.0 percent from 2015. That was in line with the 19.0 percent growth in total first-lien production in 2016. But the agency jumbo market – loans in high-cost markets eligible for securitization by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae – was...[Includes three data tables]