Fannie Mae made its second foray of 2011 into the non-agency MBS market by providing a guarantee wrap on a $690.6 billion deal backed by previously modified FHA and VA mortgages. Government Loan Securitization Trust 2011-FV1 is comprised of government loans originated by Wells Fargo and Wachovia. All the loans were previously securitized in non-agency MBS backed by Fannie wraps, including some that date back to 2001. The average age of the loans since modification is 132 months, and 91.2 percent of them are insured by the FHA. According to the prospectus, 19.8 percent of the loans were 30-days delinquent and 35.9 percent were more than...

A proposal to rid the agency mortgage programs of some of their real estate-owned property through bulk sales has come under fire from Radar Logic, a housing research firm. The company said house prices continued to drop in June, down 4.7 percent from a year ago, and bulk sales of REO properties could hasten the fall. The Obama administration recently launched a fact-finding mission soliciting ideas and opinions about ways to reduce the massive REO inventories held by the FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. One solution is bulk sales to investors who would likely turn the houses into rentals. Radar Logic is afraid of possible...

Only about 18 of the 247 “high cost” metropolitan markets will avoid seeing their FHA loan limits lowered at the end of this month, when the emergency loan-limit adjustments for the FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are set to expire, according to a new analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance. All 24 metro markets that now have loan limits of $729,750 (or higher in Hawaii) will see their limits dropped to at least $625,500, and some of these areas in California will see...

More than 20 percent of counties across the country will be affected by the scheduled decline in the FHA loan limits announced by the Department of Housing and Urban Development recently, with the fallout varying from one area to another. Announcing the new loan limits taking effect on Oct. 1, HUD said the change is expected to affect 669 counties, or 20.7 percent of the 3,234 jurisdictions in which FHA insures home loans. Despite dire warnings from mortgage industry groups, HUD estimates that only a fraction of borrowers living in high-cost areas would be impacted by the new loan limits. Last year, only 3 percent of FHA borrowers lived ... [Includes two data charts]