After soaring to nearly a four-year high in September, monthly production of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae MBS starting coming to earth in October. The three agencies issued a total of $146.68 billion of single-family MBS last month, down 8.8 percent from September. Even with the downturn, October still ranked as the second-highest monthly issuance since June 2013. Year-to-date production edged...[Includes two data tables]
Fannie Mae this week, in partnership with “fintech” lender SoFi, rolled out a new cash-out refinance mortgage aimed at borrowers who want to tap home equity to pay down their college loans. According to interviews with Fannie officials, the rollout is driven by cutting guaranty fees that usually accompany Fannie Mae cash-out mortgages. Fannie’s average g-fee on new business was...
The government-sponsored enterprises are well on their way to trimming their retained mortgage portfolios to less than $250.0 billion each by the start of 2018. As of the end of the third quarter, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had a combined mortgage portfolio of $615.65 billion, down 3.3 percent from June. While Freddie historically had the larger retained holdings, the two portfolios are now roughly equal. Under the current terms of their conservatorship, Fannie and Freddie are required...[Includes one data table]
With no blockbuster mergers and a relatively subdued secondary market in mortgage servicing rights, glacial momentum continued to reshape the mortgage servicing business during the third quarter of 2016, according to new ranking and analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance. The two forces that have had the biggest impact over the past few years are the growth of nonbanks and the gradual deconsolidation of the servicing market. The combined portfolio of the 23 nonbanks that ranked among the top 50 servicers as of the end of the third quarter jumped 6.9 percent in just three months. The nonbank share of the $7.389 trillion serviced by the top 50 players in the market rose...[Includes two data tables]
Many industry experts are advising Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to expand so-called front-end approaches to credit-risk transfers that have so far relied heavily on structured debt notes and reinsurance contracts arranged long after loans are sold to the two government-sponsored enterprises. In a comment letter filed with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Redwood Trust suggested that “a more robust front-end CRT program [should] at least match the volume of back-end transactions.” Through the end of September, Fannie and Freddie have issued $35.88 billion of back-end debt notes covering $1.223 trillion of single-family mortgages, according to Inside MBS & ABS, an affiliated newsletter. Redwood is...