During the second quarter, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Veterans Affairs home loan guaranty program all saw significant increases in production of “agency jumbo” loans – mortgages with loan amounts exceeding the baseline $417,000 agency loan limit. A new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis reveals that the agencies’ combined jumbo production, including FHA activity, rose 53.3 percent to $36.2 billion during the second quarter. That represented the highest quarterly total since “emergency” high-cost loan limits were established in the aftermath of the financial crisis. The FHA had...[Includes three data tables]
In general, it hasn’t been a pretty picture this year when it comes to the sale of “bulk” mortgage servicing rights, especially Ginnie Mae receivables. According to figures compiled by affiliate publication Inside Mortgage Trends, bulk MSR transfers (one barometer of sales) increased 20.6 percent in the second quarter compared to the first with roughly $42.9 billion of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie product changing hands. The third quarter is expected...
Freddie Mac’s newly launched front-end credit-risk transfer pilot doesn’t appear to be the expansion of credit-risk transfers that mortgage bankers have been clamoring for. For starters, the deep MI pilot won’t result in lower guarantee fees, which is what the Mortgage Bankers Association has been seeking. And it’s not the deep-cover primary insurance that private MIs would like to write. Under the Freddie Mac Deep MI pilot, the government-sponsored enterprise is purchasing...
Mortgage lenders would be able to extend more credit to traditionally underserved borrowers with greater confidence and sell those loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to proponents of legislation pending on Capitol Hill. H.R. 4211, the “Credit Score Competition Act of 2015,” introduced by Rep. Ed Royce, R-CA, would allow Fannie and Freddie to consider alternative scoring models when determining whether to purchase a residential mortgage. Further, the Federal Housing Finance Agency would be given...
Atlantic Bay Mortgage Group recently started offering its loan originators a unique option in terms of compensation: a share of the servicing fee. More than 90 percent of loan originator compensation plans are based on an LO’s volume, according to surveys conducted by Stratmor Group. Atlantic Bay’s Progressive Earnings Plan allows LOs to earn an annuity stream of income from mortgages when the lender retains the servicing. Rebecca Chaney, a senior executive vice president of legal affairs at Atlantic Bay, likened...
One trade group source had this to say about the arrangement: “There’s no g-fee break? Then it doesn’t sound like front-end coverage that helps lenders.”