Fannie Mae is reaching out to the last of the pack of borrowers looking to modify their loans and announced a policy change to its Servicing Management Default Underwriter tool that is aimed at qualifying more borrowers for foreclosure prevention assistance. Servicers use the tool to determine what foreclosure prevention options are available to help a borrower facing financial difficulty. The change requires servicers to now calculate the borrower’s full mortgage obligation, including the outstanding principal balance, past due interest and other arrearages, to determine eligibility for a Fannie Mae Standard Modification or Streamlined Modification. Prior to the change, only the outstanding principal balance was used.

The FHFA also is promising to evaluate GSE underwriting criteria to improve access to single-family credit...

The profit margin outlook “has gradually trended down each quarter this year,” Fannie Mae said.

The Fed hiked rates. So what! It was already built into current pricing...

The supply of home mortgage debt outstanding increased by 0.5 percent during the third quarter of 2015, following a similar modest gain during the previous period. A total of $9.952 trillion of single-family mortgage debt was outstanding at the end of September, according to a Federal Reserve report released late last week. It represented a second consecutive quarterly increase, something the mortgage servicing market has struggled to accomplish during the long contraction that started back in 2008. Most of the increase came...[Includes one data table]

Subservicing shops increased their portfolios to $1.50 trillion during the third quarter, a 6.4 percent sequential gain, as mortgage originators continued to rely on such specialty vendors, according to exclusive survey figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance. Compared to a year ago, subservicing volume was up an impressive 28.2 percent. At Sept. 30, roughly 15.8 percent of all outstanding residential mortgages were being processed...[Includes one data table]

Lenders generated $25.0 billion in home-equity loans during the third quarter of 2015, according to Inside Mortgage Finance estimates, a modest 4.2 percent increase at a time when first-lien originations were fading. Home-equity lending – including open-ended lines of credit and closed-end second liens – hit its highest volume since the second quarter of 2008. Crashing home prices and extremely cautious underwriting have drastically reduced new home-equity lending. There is...[Includes three data tables]

Congress looks poised to enact its second piece of legislation involving the two government-sponsored enterprises that have been in conservatorship for over seven years. Lawmakers included the “Jumpstart GSE Reform Act” in a fiscal 2016 omnibus spending bill that is expected to be approved late this week. The first piece of GSE legislation enacted by Congress affected just two people, rolling back pay raises awarded to the CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac early in 2015. The “Jumpstart” language is more daring by barring the Treasury Department from doing something it has no intention of doing: selling its preferred stock in the GSEs without Congressional approval. The original Jumpstart legislation, sponsored by Sens. Bob Corker, R-TN, Mark Warner, D-VA, and Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, also would have blocked...

Seven years to the day after the Federal Reserve began its so-called ZIRP – or zero interest rate policy – the Fed’s Open Market Committee, as widely expected, finally voted this week to begin raising interest rates, opting for a modest 25 basis point rise in the federal funds rate. “This action marks the end of an extraordinary seven-year period during which the federal funds rate was held near zero to support the recovery of the economy from the worst financial crisis and recession since the Great Depression,” said Fed chief Janet Yellen. “It also recognizes the considerable progress that has been made toward restoring jobs, raising incomes and easing the economic hardship of millions of Americans. And it reflects the committee’s confidence that the economy will continue to strengthen.” However, the Fed also implied...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency will push Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to assess front-end risk-sharing strategies in 2016, according to the agency’s game plan for the two government-sponsored enterprises released late this week. At this point, most of the work appears to be exploratory. The FHFA itself will issue a formal “request for input” from the industry, and the GSEs are expected “to conduct an analysis and assessment of front-end credit risk transfer.” The 2016 “scorecard” pushes...