The chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs signaled this week that Congress is unlikely to take up comprehensive legislation to reform the government-sponsored enterprises before the presidential election this fall. Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-AL, asked the Government Accountability Office to publish a report on a variety of issues involving the GSEs and their potential future structure by Nov. 1. Shelby’s deadline could be ambitious for such a complex issue: a report published last week by the GAO on issues with nonbank mortgage servicers was requested back in October 2014. The timeline suggests...

Two years after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability-to-repay (ATR) rule went into effect, residential mortgage servicers have yet to see borrower claims being brought, according to a new report from Fitch Ratings. However, Fitch says the landscape could change as certain non-qualified mortgage loans become more common. But for now, the lack of borrower claims is not surprising, the report said. Most loans, including those eligible for purchase by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, meet...

The evolutionary flow of the slow-growing agency mortgage servicing market continued in the first quarter of 2016 as many of the big names peeled back and fast-growers kept growing, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. Overall, the agency MSR space expanded by a meager 0.2 percent during the first three months of 2016. Slow growth is typical of heavier refinance periods, and refi business at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae was up a combined 1.9 percent from the fourth quarter. Although purchase mortgages accounted for half of the first-quarter market, the volume of such loans securitized by the three agencies was down 12.6 percent from the previous period. Ginnie continued...[Includes two data tables]

For mortgage bankers, it was another trying week in TRID purgatory: A mid-sized nonbank exited the correspondent jumbo market because of concerns over legal liability and separately it appeared industry trade groups have given up hope that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will issue any type of formal guidance on cures. Meanwhile, the TRID scratch-and-dent market continues to hum along and the consumer watchdog agency has begun examining residential lenders for compliance with the integrated disclosure rule. “TRID exams have commenced...

The new principal-reduction option for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loan modifications could end up affecting only about 6,000 delinquent borrowers, according to an Urban Institute analysis. The Federal Housing Finance Agency late last week announced that the government-sponsored enterprises would do principal writedowns for a small population of distressed borrowers. The program is limited to loans that were seriously delinquent as of March 31, had loan amounts of less than $250,000 and unpaid debt, including arrearages, exceeding 115 percent of the current market value of the home. The FHFA estimated...

Nonbanks serviced $2.085 trillion of agency MBS at the end of March, a 2.9 percent increase from the fourth quarter.

Wells Fargo was the top seller to the GSEs in the first quarter with $22.75 billion, followed by Quicken Loans ($11.33 billion) and JPMorgan Chase ($6.87 billion).

Would you lend money to your relatives? One mortgage firm has made it a business model...

Shelby noted that Congress “has a responsibility to conduct proper oversight” over the FHFA and the GSEs.