California. In XL Specialty Insurance Company v. Perry, No. 11-2078, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ruled that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. cannot intervene in in a litigation dispute between former IndyMac Bancorp executives and their insurers. The court ruled the FDIC did not meet the standard for intervention as a matter of right, or the standard for permissive intervention. Connecticut. In RMS Residential Properties, LLC v. Anna M. Miller et al., the Connecticut Supreme Court recently ruled that RMS Residential Properties, LLC, with an assignment from Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., had standing to foreclose after the borrower defaulted, and that MERS was a valid mortgagee at the origination of the loan, as the nominee for the original lender. The court rejected the claim of the defendant, who argued that that MERS, as third party, could not be named as a mortgagee because it was not the original lender or the party secured by the mortgage. The court also rejected the defendants request to declare the MERS mortgage to be void because MERS was not the owner of the debt.
Theres been a notable changing of the guard among attorneys in the mortgage banking practices at the law firms of Patton Boggs, Ballard Spahr and Dykema. Partners Richard Andreano, John Socknat and Michael Waldron and associate Reid Herlihy left Patton Boggs recently with upwards of 100 clients and signed on with the newly created Mortgage Banking Group at Ballard Spahr. The new unit is part of Ballard Spahrs larger effort to build up its Washington, DC, office. Meanwhile, Dykema augmented its regulatory presence by bringing on board former Patton Boggs senior lawyers Heather Hutchings and Haydn Richards to its Financial Services Regulatory and Compliance practice.
The recent change in the FHAs maximum loan limits would have relatively limited impact for current borrowers trying to refinance, according to analysts. FHA loans insured prior to Oct. 1, 2011, were already grandfathered in for streamlined refinancing regardless of loan size, said analysts with J.P. Morgan Securities. In addition, the analysts said they do not expect many conventional jumbo-to-FHA refinances in this market segment because the mortgage insurance premiums make FHA loans less attractive. Last month, President Obama signed an appropriations bill into law, reinstating the pre-Oct. 1 formula for calculating the temporary loan limits for high-cost areas, which is ... [With one chart]
Expenses for maintaining foreclosed properties before their transfer or conveyance are much higher for FHA than for Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report. The report, which focuses on the growing number of vacant properties and the costs and challenges of maintaining them, found that FHAs pre-conveyance reimbursements to servicers are higher than the government-sponsored enterprises pre-foreclosure reimbursements. In 2010, the FHA reimbursed servicers about $1,982 compared to the GSEs $235 per property for maintenance-related expenses prior to ...
Private mortgage insurers would play a strategic role under a new Senate proposal for winding down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and privatizing guarantees on high-quality mortgage securitizations. Introduced by Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-GA, the Mortgage Finance Act of 2011 would create a new regulatory framework for securitizing qualified residential mortgages and an alternative form of guarantee provided by a new Mortgage Finance Agency. Under Isaksons bill, the two government-sponsored enterprises would be placed in a run-off mode by the Federal Housing Finance Agency 18 months from the date of enactment. They would be required to ...
There are a slew of metrics that go into the calculation of performance incentives for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and their top executives. Some of them like hitting softball market share targets when the only competition is Ginnie Mae and Freddie Mac seem hard to miss. For 2010, one of Fannies performance goals was to achieve a 33 percent share of new single-family mortgage-backed securities issuance. The company actually attained a 44 percent share of MBS issuance last year, which helped Fannies top executives earn 89 percent to 99 percent of their maximum long-term...
Agency residential MBS issuance in November rose to its busiest level since the start of 2011, but seasonal slowdowns in housing activity and a refinance boom thats losing steam suggest that the current wave is at or near its peak. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae generated a total of $114.53 billion in new single-family MBS during November. That was up 11.2 percent from October volume and marked the highest monthly production level since January 2011, when the agencies issued $137.76 billion. But consumer demand for refinance loans has been...(Includes two data charts)
Debt issuance for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks all recorded increases in new debt issuance during the third quarter of 2011.The three GSEs collectively issued $797.7 billion in new debt issue during the third quarter, a 9.8 percent increase from the previous quarter, while GSE debt outstanding at $2.152 trillion declined 4.8 percent from the second quarter.
Just in time for the holidays, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac each announced last week that all foreclosure-related evictions from occupied single-family and two-to-four unit properties with Fannie or Freddie mortgages will be suspended from Dec. 19, 2011 to Jan. 2, 2012.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be put into irrevocable receivership with the Federal Housing Finance Agency tasked as their receiver no later than 18 months after enactment of a bill introduced in the Senate this week.Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-GA, introduced the Mortgage Finance Act of 2011 to get the American taxpayer out of the business of bailing out the mortgage industry. The bill would wind down Fannie and Freddie while creating a new regulatory framework for high-quality mortgage securitization for both single-family and multifamily mortgages.