The agency has picked Houlihan Lokey Capital to help it identify any financial, regulatory or market risks in its path to take Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of conservatorship.

Director Mark Calabria believes the revised structure and new hires will ensure FHFA continues to protect taxpayers from future bailouts and delivers on its obligation to create a competitive, liquid, efficient and resilient housing-finance market.

Big gains by Mr. Cooper and NewRez boosted the combined portfolio of the top five servicers, offsetting further declines at Wells Fargo, Chase and Bank of America. (Includes two data charts.)

Nonbanks are on pace to surpass depository institutions as the largest class of agency servicers sometime early this year. (Includes two data charts.)

Unlike previous models, the FICO Score 10 will consider account balances and missed payments over a 24-month period. It will flag borrowers who have consolidated credit card debt into riskier personal loans.

The worry beads are once again out for nonbanks. Meanwhile, coming soon: fourth-quarter results for Fannie and Freddie. What possibly could go wrong?

While the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s plan to extend the qualified-mortgage patch was not unexpected, its proposal to eliminate the debt-to-income threshold has sparked a debate.

Investment banking firms hoping to land the Fannie/Freddie “re-IPO” con-tract need to convince FHFA’s GSE advisor first. Problem is: We don’t know who the advisor is, at least not yet. We may soon.

Since the launch of the single security, investors have increasingly turned to the use of specified pools rather than the TBA market, said Bob Ryan, a former FHFA official and one of the architects of the UMBS.

The stock market boomed in 2019 and mortgage stocks followed right along. Mortgage insurance equities had nice gains but the top performers were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (Includes data chart.)