Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should each implement a board-approved risk-management framework that specifically includes risk-based oversight of single-family seller/servicers, according to an advisory bulletin issued this week by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The new “supervisory expectation” covers numerous seller/servicer oversight activities that the government-sponsored enterprises have done for years, albeit pulling them all together under a comprehensive framework. It implements a recommendation made by the FHFA inspector general in July, which expressed concern that the regulator is not paying enough attention to the financial condition of certain nonbank servicers that make up a growing share of Fannie/Freddie business. “FHFA expects...

Private mortgage insurers would support a front-end, risk-transfer program that makes greater use of MI, such as the one proposed by the Mortgage Bankers Association, to reduce taxpayer risk, according to MI executives. The MIs are interested in moving forward with a year-old MBA proposal for a risk-sharing program that would allow deeper MI coverage on loans with high loan-to-value ratios, and coverage on loans with LTVs below 80 percent, accompanied by a reduction in guaranty fees. Importantly, this would require lowering the floor on loss factors to account for these lower-risk loans, the MBA said. However, two important things must be...

Some foreclosed homeowners may have the option to repurchase their homes at fair market value following a new directive from the Federal Housing Finance Agency that calls for the two government-sponsored enterprises to relax policies related to the sale of real estate owned properties to defaulted borrowers. The two government-sponsored enterprises until now have required foreclosed borrowers that want to purchase their home from REO inventory to pay the full amount of the unpaid debt on their previous mortgage. “This is...

The IMA package – top heavy with California and Florida loans – includes $110.8 million of Ginnie Mae receivables.

At the same time, the market share of GSE business has been redistributed toward the smaller lenders.

Just because a GSE uses a third-party vendor to assess the risk of seller/servicers as counter-parties that doesn’t mean the GSE – or their management – is off the hook if something goes awry.

A new poll from IMFnews and Inside Mortgage Finance suggests that lenders are hardly optimistic that the R&W changes will amount to anything.

On a year-to-date basis, GSE refi securitizations were down 68.6 percent at the end of October.

All three mortgage-production channels generated solid increases in new origination volume during the third quarter of 2014, but the correspondent market had a measurably bigger gain, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. An estimated $105 billion of home loans were produced by correspondent originators during the third quarter, up 14.1 percent from the previous quarter. That lifted the correspondent share of new originations to 30.4 percent for the quarter, and 30.3 percent on a year-to-date basis. Correspondents are...[Includes four data charts]

The Obama administration noted this week that it is less than keen on the idea of taking up an outgoing Democrat senator’s call to end the six-plus year conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Last week, Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, D-SD, suggested the GSEs’ conservatorship be ended if legislative reform is not forthcoming.