Mortgage Grapevine: Rushmore is buying another origination platform, a sign that mortgage M&A could be on the rise again. Meanwhile, Fannie Mae is offering buyout packages to a select group of employees.
In a speech this week before the annual secondary market conference of the Mortgage Bankers Association, FHFA Director Mark Calabria sounded a little bit like the Mark Calabria of the Cato Institute.
New FHFA Director Mark Calabria singled out GSE "charter creep" as something he would like to eliminate. But he was short on specifics. Still, an FHFA probe of the matter has been launched.
The National Association of Realtors this week picked apart FHFA's plan to recapitalize the GSEs and release them from conservatorship. NAR, by the way, favors a model where the GSEs are morphed into shareholder-owned utilities.
Faxing income verification requests to the IRS may soon be a thing of the past as a bill seeking to modernize IRS processes has found strong support in Congress.
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week involving the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and foreclosures in certain states could prompt legislation from Congress.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, introduced legislation last week to make significant changes to the housing-finance market. The bill is essentially dead on arrival given the current makeup of Congress, but it signals some priorities for Democrats as they look to win elections in 2020.
As policymakers evaluate systemic risk in the housing-finance market and act to avert the next crisis, they should avoid taking measures that would force market share away from nonbanks, the Mortgage Bankers Association cautioned.