This lender said finding good appraisers can sometimes be a challenge and predicted that eventually appraisals on such mortgages could cost upwards of $1,000…

Black Knight Financial also said that despite the reintroduction of Fannie’s and Freddie’s 97 LTV product, the FHA/VA continues to dominate low downpayment lending.

The jumbo mortgage business has been a growth market for the past few years but the sector lost a little ground in the third quarter, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. An estimated $117.1 billion of mortgages exceeding the baseline conforming loan limit of $417,000 were originated during the third quarter. That included $85.0 billion of loans that were too big to be securitized by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or Ginnie Mae, plus another $32.1 billion of agency-eligible jumbo mortgages in high-cost markets. Total jumbo volume was...[Includes three data tables]

Two schools of thought are emerging on Quicken Loans’ legal battle over FHA underwriting claims: Plenty of smaller nonbanks are eager to pick up any volume that the mortgage giant might cede, while others say Quicken should exit the space to teach the government a lesson. Glen Corso, executive director of Community Mortgage Lenders of America, said his members are eager to pick up the slack if Quicken makes good on its threat to pull back from FHA lending. The way things stand...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have seen modest growth in programs launched early this year to serve downpayment-challenged borrowers, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of loan-level data on agency mortgage-backed securities. Ginnie Mae has accounted for 94.5 percent of purchase mortgages with loan-to-value ratios ranging from 95.1 percent to 97.0 percent that were securitized by the three agencies during the first 11 months of 2015. Because LTV data is not available for all loans in Ginnie MBS, the agency’s actual share of these high-LTV loans is likely somewhat higher. Fannie and Freddie have established...[Includes one data table]

Look for new FHLB membership rules from the FHFA by February 2016...

It's that time of the season: MBS issuance was down 30.6 percent at Fannie and off 17.4 percent at Freddie.

The average loan-to-value ratio of the NPLs is 91 percent, based on the broker price opinion.

During the worst of the buyback storm in late 2012 and early 2013, the GSEs reported over $18.51 billion of unresolved repurchase requests and as much as $13.22 billion in buybacks during a single quarter.

On the $5.9 billion MSR pool, 42 percent of the rights are tied to mortgages in California, Florida and Texas...