Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac this week officially announced 97 percent loan-to-value ratio programs to a mixed industry response. Fannie’s low-downpayment option will be available through its MyCommunityMortgage program, as well as for refinances and other non-MCM mortgages. Freddie will offer its 3 percent downpayment product as a purchase or no-cash-out refinance in its Home Possible Advantage program. The biggest difference between the two is...
Democrats in Congress and consumer advocates remain concerned about tight underwriting standards for mortgages, particularly due to overlays established by lenders. However, at a hearing this week by a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, there was a lack of consensus on what causes underwriting overlays. “Instead of matching the creditworthy borrower at the lower end of the distribution with affordable loans, these borrowers are being cut out of the market entirely,” said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, chairman of the Banking Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation and Community Development. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, suggested...
The migration of mortgage servicing rights from “more tightly to less tightly regulated parts of the financial system” should be addressed by regulators, according to the Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Research. The OFR, which was created by the Dodd-Frank Act to serve the Financial Stability Oversight Council, said Basel capital requirements have created incentives for banks to sell MSRs to nonbanks. In its annual report, the OFR cautioned that nonbanks aren’t as well regulated as banks. “Mortgage servicing activity and the accompanying risks appear...
Sen, Menedez added: “These [programs] were not the drivers of the financial crisis. We’re going to hear the opposite of that in the next session of Congress.”
One source told IMF that in some instances, certain nonbanks have been asked by the agencies to hold “more capital” in reserve accounts than other seller/servicers.
Freddie’s program, which is called “Home Possible Advantage,” requires a minimum credit score of 660 for purchase loans, and 680 for "no cash-out" refis. This is only for manually underwritten loans.
New issuance of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae single-family MBS fell 13.7 percent from October to November, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis of loan-level data. The three agencies produced $80.23 billion of single-family MBS last month, the lowest amount since June. November also marked the first monthly decline in new production after seven consecutive monthly gains that started in April. All three agencies saw...[Includes two data charts]
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