Mortgage lenders seeking new agency approvals from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae have to take a number and wait. And sometimes that wait can last for a year or more, even longer depending on which “agency” a company is dealing with. But all that appears to be changing, according to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance over the past two weeks. Unfortunately, there’s little in the way of hard numbers to back that up, except for Ginnie Mae. According to an agency spokesman, Ginnie approved...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2012 combined for the third biggest year ever in single-family mortgage-backed securities issuance, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance market analysis and ranking.

Newcastle Investment Corp., a key player in the huge servicing sale recently unveiled by Bank of America, has raised roughly $538 million by selling 57.5 million shares of common stock in the open market.

JPMorgan Chase marked up the asset value of its mortgage servicing rights by 8 percent in the fourth quarter to $7.6 billion and reported strong residential lending results, funding $51.2 billion of product, a slight gain from a very strong third quarter.

The federal judge in charge of overseeing multiple lawsuits filed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency against non-agency mortgage-backed securities issuers for misrepresenting deals that were sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rebuffed yet another motion by one of the banks to shut down the legal action.

Citigroup has joined the club of megabanks marking up the asset value of their mortgage servicing rights. Shares of Genworth spiked, and other mortgage news briefs.

During the final three months of 2012, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securitized some $52.72 billion of single-family home loans that were covered by private mortgage insurance, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis.

Redwood Trust is set to issue its second non-agency jumbo MBS of the year, a $666.13 million security, according to a presale report released today by Kroll Bond Rating Agency. The MBS will largely consist of 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, with 51.4 percent of the originations from First Republic Bank. Plus other mortgage news briefs.

Fannie Mae is ending the practice of assigning different guaranty-fee discounts to the various “affinity groups” or cooperatives that pool mortgages for sale into the secondary market, Inside Mortgage Finance has learned.

After including a significant amount of ARMs in its first issuance of the year, the second non-agency jumbo mortgage-backed security of 2013 from Redwood Trust will consist largely of 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, according to a new presale report released by Kroll Bond Rating Agency.