In the last quarter, for instance, Fannie and Freddie posted combined net earnings of $5.1 billion – most of which was swept into a Treasury account.

Why short Altisource? This source reasons that as real estate values continue to improve and foreclosures slow, Altisource will have less to do going forward...

SIFMA did not take a stance on whether g-fees should be adjusted up or down. Instead, the trade group stressed that it is unclear how a change to g-fees would impact non-agency activity.

Although "legacy" MSR sales are in the tank, newer servicing rights continue to hit the market.

Although investors continue to pay premium – or close to it – prices for newly originated mortgage servicing rights, very few residential lenders have tried to securitize the underlying cash flows, leaving some market observers scratching their heads. “There are very few deals out there that I’m aware of,” said one servicing advisor, requesting his name not be used. “If a company needs cash, it’s a good option, but there’s just not much going on.” So far this year, just a handful of MSR-backed bonds have come...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were both active this week with multifamily MBS transactions, but they’ll have to double-time it if they plan to match last year’s levels. The odds are against them. Fannie’s multifamily new business volume came to $13.8 billion through August 2014, compared with $20.4 billion the year before. The government-sponsored enterprise would have to crank out another $15 billion in the last four months of 2014 to match the 2013 total of $28.8 billion. For rival Freddie, multifamily new business activity totaled...

Commercial banks hate mortgages. No, they don't. Yes, they do. No they don't. Yes, they do...

Congress should put the screws to the Treasury Department to disclose all documents pertaining to the origins of the Obama administration’s controversial “net-worth sweep” of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac profits, according to a coalition of right-leaning public policy groups. In a letter dispatched late this week to the top Republican and Democrat of the House Financial Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, the 17 groups led by the Competitive Enterprise Institute urged lawmakers to intervene to impose transparency over what GSE shareholders consider an extra-legal maneuver by the executive branch.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were not ready for the new representation and warranty framework that took effect early last year at the insistence of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, according to a new Inspector General audit. Announced in September 2012 and implemented Jan. 1, 2013, the framework relieved sellers from certain reps and warrants, including those relating to credit underwriting and eligibility of the borrower and the property that were formerly effective for the life of the loan.

The ongoing uncertainty about the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is weighing on the mortgage industry and it’s only going to get worse with time, said the former head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency this week. Edward DeMarco, now a senior fellow in residence for the Milken Institute’s Center for Financial Markets, warned that with the government in effective control of the mortgage market, the risk grows of capital allocation and pricing decisions made through the prism of political calculation rather than due to sound, market driven principle.