A day after the news broke that W.J. Bradley Mortgage has shut its doors, competition is heating up for some of its top loan officer and executive talent...
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are wading into the testing phase for the Single Security initiative for to-be-announced MBS, and they agreed on common names for the new product. The first-level securities – the equivalent of Fannie’s MBS and Freddie’s participation certificates – will be called “Uniform MBS.” The second-level deals – replacing Fannie’s Megas and Freddie’s Giants – will be known as “Supers.” Fannie has already registered the trademarks for these names. It appears that domain names for both, at least the .com variety, have been grabbed up. Both government-sponsored enterprises continue to prepare for conversion, and Common Securitization Solutions continues to release software for system-to-system testing, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s 2015 Scorecard Progress Report released late last week. These ...
Real estate investment trusts that focus on residential MBS continued to pare their investments in the fourth quarter, a trend that may last through the remainder of the year. Interest rate volatility and continued reports of “illiquidity” in the MBS market remain key factors plaguing the sector. Still, prices for agency product remain strong and, as Inside MBS & ABS noted recently, commercial banks and thrifts continue to add to their holdings, which reached a record $1.643 trillion at yearend 2015. The 16 public mortgage REITs tracked by this publication held $233.17 billion of MBS at year-end, 92.4 percent of which included Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae product. The non-agency market continues to shrink as legacy nonprime securities ...
With only a few isolated exceptions, VA and FHA lending was up sharply across the country last year, outstripping the private mortgage insurance business in nearly every state of the U.S., according to a new analysis by Inside FHA/VA Lending. Overall, FHA single-family mortgages securitized by Ginnie Mae increased 60.5 percent from 2014 and VA production was up 39.4 percent. Meanwhile, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac posted a more subdued 26.2 percent increase in privately-insured loan volume. California remained the biggest mortgage market for the FHA, VA and private MIs, as well as uninsured mortgages. The FHA clearly won the mortgage insurance battle, boosting its share of insured loans in the Golden State from 41.1 percent in 2014 to 49.2 percent last year thanks to a whopping 89.8 percent jump in business. California had one of the highest concentrations of ... [ 3 charts ]
Private mortgage insurers have announced changes in their premium rate structure to make their pricing more risk-based. The question is would this drive borrowers with lower credit scores toward FHA? Lenders say that while the private MI rate changes appear to make it more expensive for borrowers with lower credit scores to obtain a conventional mortgage, FHA’s life-of-loan policy could also cost borrowers more in the end. Analysts, too, are confident that private MI risk-adjusted pricing will not have any significant impact on FHA, positive or otherwise. Six private mortgage insurers have updated their premium rate cards in keeping with the new capital requirements under the government-sponsored enterprises’ Private Mortgage Insurer Eligibility Requirements (PMIERs) that were implemented in January 2016. The proposed rate changes are subject to ...
The supply of “conforming-jumbo” mortgage originations flowing into agency mortgage-backed securities programs contracted sharply in the fourth quarter of 2015, but overall jumbo lending still held up better than the overall market, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis. During the final three months of 2015, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae securitized $24.69 billion of mortgages with loan amounts that exceeded the baseline conforming loan limit, $417,000… [Includes three charts]
PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust recently entered into its third front-end risk-sharing trans-action with Fannie Mae. The real estate investment trust said it has seen strong returns from such deals, potentially paving the way for other lenders to directly share credit risk with the government-sponsored enterprises. The third credit-risk transfer agreement between PennyMac and Fannie involves $5.0 billion in unpaid principal balance of mortgages acquired by the nonbank from correspondents. In a slide presen-tation, the REIT said it expects to invest $175.0 million as part of the CRT deal. PennyMac also recently completed deliveries into its second CRT transaction with Fannie. The agreement involved mortgages with an unpaid principal balance of $4.25 billion and a $149 million in-vestment by the REIT.