Expressing its views and estimates for the Fiscal Year 2014 budget, the House Financial Services Committee remains concerned that the FHA has not fully exercised its powers to protect its mortgage insurance fund and urged the agency to begin charging additional user fees to strengthen its financial footing. Apparently, there is a hitch in that proposal. It seems the Department of Housing and Urban Development does not charge user fees and to do so would probably need clear authorization from Congress, said a HUD spokesman. It is not clear what the committee meant by ...
The Federal Housing Finance Agency is mandating that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac each enter into $30 billion of “risk sharing” transactions this year and move a little more quickly to reduce their $1.19 trillion of on-balance sheet holdings, including whole loans and non-agency MBS. The edict comes directly from FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco, who provided few details about the initiative during a speech this week to the National Association for Business Economics. DeMarco also announced that the regulator intends to set up a new government entity that will develop and manage the common MBS securitization platform that’s been in the works for the two government-sponsored entities. One reason for pushing the GSEs to test drive risk-sharing structures is...
The purchase mortgage business has been in the tank since the housing crash. Although home buying is on the upswing, will it be enough to replace the refi boom?
Industry observers are scratching their heads after the Federal Housing Finance Agency this week took another step toward a future secondary mortgage market by announcing a plan to establish a single entity that would be used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – and at some point, perhaps, private issuers – to issue mortgage-backed securities. Acting FHFA Director Ed DeMarco, in a speech before the National Association for Business Economics, laid out his plan for a single MBS platform that would be run by, and apparently developed by, an entirely new government entity “separate” from Fannie and Freddie. The platform, he promised, would have...
Mortgage originations last year increased by some $435 billion from 2011 and virtually all of that gain came from refinance activity. Unless housing activity begins to grow significantly faster, mortgage lending volume appears likely to drop significantly in 2013. Prodded along by the suddenly successful Home Affordable Refinance Program, refi lending increased by $403 billion last year, a 41.9 percent increase over 2011. And although a number of indicators suggested that housing sales were beginning to firm up, home-purchase mortgage originations were up just 6.3 percent – a gain of $32 billion – compared to the previous year. In fact, purchase-mortgage originations have been...[Includes three data charts]
It’s far from over, but the years-old plague of mortgage buybacks may be slowly winding down. A new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of bank call reports reveals that banks and thrifts repurchased “only” $2.97 billion during the fourth quarter of 2012. That was down 2.1 percent from the third quarter, but it marked the fifth straight quarterly decline and it was the lowest level since the second quarter of 2009. It brought total repurchases on single-family mortgages, which include indemnifications, to $13.97 billion for all of 2012, a decline of 33.3 percent from the previous year. It was the lowest annual repurchase volume since 2008. An earlier Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of repurchase disclosures made by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac showed...
New issuance of agency single-family MBS fell 3.1 percent from January to February, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking. On a combined basis, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae issued $153.4 billion in new single-family MBS last month. That was up 31.6 percent from February 2012 and compared favorably with the $138.5 billion monthly average issuance for all of last year. All of the decline came...[Includes one data chart]
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