Many left-leaning politicians have complained that Wall Street executives got off the hook for the financial crisis...

The Blackstone Group, which has been gobbling up mortgage banking franchises of late, may have its eye on the mortgage insurance space. But for now it does not appear that it plans to rebuild what’s left of PMI Mortgage insurance as a going concern. As usual, the investment banker is saying little about what it plans to do with its “strategic investment” in The PMI Group, a once top-ranked MI that was placed into receivership back in 2012. PMI isn’t talking either. The investment, revealed last week, was made through the Blackstone Tactical Opportunities Fund. When the announcement was first unveiled, both analysts and MI professionals were left...

As they approach their eighth year in conservatorship, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac generate a lot of revenue for the government and dominate the conventional-conforming mortgage market. But both government-sponsored enterprises are forced to hold less and less capital, and a bad quarter or two could force another round of bailouts. Aside from lawsuits by disgruntled GSE shareholders, pressure appears to be growing for a new approach that would allow the two to rebuild their capital. According to reports, Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-SC, may introduce such a bill in one of the least hospitable places it could land, the House Financial Services Committee. As of press time Mulvaney’s office has not returned...

The Mortgage Bankers Association ended its last fiscal year in the black with $7.7 million in net assets, a marked improvement from the negative $3.8 million it had when the year began. However, according to a review of MBA’s past tax returns by Inside Mortgage Finance, the trade group has its work cut out if it wants to return to the halcyon days before the housing bust when it boasted $63.3 million in net assets, a cushion that was depleted thanks to the industry’s downturn and a disastrous investment in a new headquarters building back in 2010. MBA officials continue...

There is no doubt that nonbank mortgage lenders are as heavily regulated as banks when it comes to consumer protection, some industry executives say, but the level of scrutiny for safety and soundness may be higher for depository institutions. The Community Home Lenders Association asserts that nonbanks are subject to more consumer protections than banks and have virtually identical regulatory burdens imposed by product regulations such as those for the FHA, VA, Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. “While nonbanks are heavily regulated at the state level, they are...

Collingwood's latest hire is Paul Mullins, former senior vice president of single-family lending for Freddie Mac.

The CFPB and the Federal Housing Finance Agency jointly released two technical reports recently about the development of the National Mortgage Database (NMDB) and the quarterly National Survey of Mortgage Borrowers (NSMB). The NMDB project is a multi-year project being jointly undertaken by the two agencies. “The project is designed to provide a rich source of information about the U.S. mortgage market based on a five percent sample of residential mortgages,” the first technical report stated. The NMDB will enable the FHFA to meet current statutory requirements to conduct a national mortgage market survey, collect data on the characteristics of individual mortgages, including those eligible for purchase by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and those that are not, and including ...

FCC Order Conflicts With CFPB Mortgage Servicing Rules, Other Foreclosure Prevention Efforts, Industry Group Says. A recent order from the Federal Communications Commission clarifying certain provisions of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act clashes with the CFPB’s mortgage servicing rule and other federal regulations designed to help struggling homeowners hold onto their homes, a representative of national mortgage lenders, servicers and service providers wrote top government officials last week. The FCC’s order, released June 18, 2015, aims to bolster consumer protections against unwanted telephone calls and texts by, in part, restricting the ability of mortgage servicers, debt collectors and others to make autodialed or prerecorded phone calls without prior express consent of the person called. Violators face strict liability for noncompliance...

Ginnie Mae had the smallest decline of the three agencies as new issuance slid 4.7 percent from July.

New issuance of single-family agency MBS dropped sharply in August as production slowed across the board at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae. A new Inside MBS & ABS analysis reveals that the three agencies produced $109.34 billion of single-family MBS during August, a 15.1 percent decline from July’s level. August 2015 was the slowest month since March, though it was 20.2 percent higher than a year ago. Freddie posted...[Includes three data tables]