Falling interest rates tripped up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the fourth quarter, indirectly leading to sharp declines in profitability despite continuing gains in their key mortgage-backed securities guaranty fee operations. Together, the two government-sponsored enterprises earned $1.54 billion in net income during the fourth quarter of 2014, down 74.3 percent from the previous quarter. With their retained portfolios in shrinkage mode, net interest income was down 11.9 percent from 2013. The big factor was...

Property characteristics and appraisals have accounted for an increasing share of the issues that delay closing of purchase mortgages, according to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage FinanceHousingPulse Tracking Survey. Real estate agents participating in the survey cited property issues as causing 22.5 percent of closing delays in January, based on a three-month moving average. That’s up from a 16.5 percent share as recently as October. The increase appears...

Fed chief Janet Yellen also signaled a continuation of the status quo for interest rates...

New Residential will pay roughly $18.25 a share for HLSS, valuing the deal at $1.3 billion.

The sale and transfer must first be approved by Freddie and its regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

In case you’re wondering, Ocwen services roughly $208 billion of non-agency product.

Almost 71 percent of residential loans originated last year were funneled into mortgage securities. In 2013 the securitization rate was 78.5 percent.

Securitization was still the dominant method to fund new home mortgage production in 2014, but Wall Street got a run for its money from portfolio lenders. A new Inside MBS & ABS analysis reveals that 70.5 percent of residential mortgages originated last year were funneled into mortgage securities. That was down from 78.5 percent in 2013 and represented the lowest mortgage securitization rate since 2006. Delivering eligible loans into new Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae securities is...[Includes one data chart]

Industry participants in the Treasury Market Practices Group raised questions about the tax consequences and other issues involved in the plan to develop a “single security” in a meeting with the Federal Housing Finance Agency last month. The recently released minutes of the meeting do not provide much detail. The FHFA representatives described in broad terms the project to create a fungible MBS that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would both issue in the to-be-announced market. In response, “Most TMPG members noted...