Fannie, Freddie Conforming Loan Limits Mostly Unchanged for 2015. The Federal Housing Finance Agency this week said that conforming loan limits for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2015 would remain at current levels in most markets. For much of the country, the conforming loan limit for one-unit properties will remain at $417,000. The loan limits are established under the terms of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 and are calculated each year.

Together, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in October posted a combined decline in the volume of single-family mortgages securitized, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis. Fannie and Freddie issued $63.1 billion in single-family mortgage-backed securities in October, a 1.5 percent decrease from September. On a year-to-date basis, October’s MBS issuance dropped an even steeper 50.6 percent.

Prior to FHFA’s new directive, Fannie and Freddie required homeowners who have been through foreclosure and want to buy their home back to pay the entire amount owed on the mortgage.

But did anyone really think the FHFA was going to reduce the GSE loan limits? Really…

What exactly is Owners.com? Launched in 1996, it’s supposedly the largest directory of homes for sale by owners. In other words, they don’t use traditional Realtors…

Wells Fargo reported a 2.1 percent drop in its correspondent originations from the second quarter to the third, and its year-to-date volume was down 57.3 percent.

The Prestwick Group and MIAC are also working on servicing deals.

Regarding Altisource Portfolio Solutions, Sterne Agee noted: “It is difficult to be optimistic from here"...

The CFPB put out a bulletin last week advising lenders not to create illegal hurdles for recipients of Social Security Disability Income who apply for mortgages, warning that requiring unnecessary documentation from such consumers could raise fair lending risk. The new bulletin discusses standards and guidelines on verification of SSDI, including those under the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rule, the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s standards for FHA loans, the Department of Veterans Affairs’ standards for VA-guaranteed loans, and guidelines from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The bureau begins by noting that to verify income for qualified mortgage debt-to-income ratios under the ability-to-repay rule, lenders are required to look at whether the Social Security Administration benefit verification letter or equivalent document ...

An unspecified number of counties would have been assigned lower loan limits, based on house price trends, but the FHFA weighed “other factors” and left them unchanged.