Rapid, aggressive refinancing of VA loans has made a comeback with some issuers using strategies to mask the practice and avoid possible penalties, including expulsion from the Ginnie Mae program, according to a top agency official. Responding to concerns raised by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, Michael Bright, acting Ginnie Mae president and chief operations officer, said a joint Ginnie Mae/VA lender-abuse task force is analyzing monthly data and developing additional policy measures to deal with the problem. Bright confirmed the resurgence of inappropriate streamline refinancing in Ginnie securitization pools in recent weeks and has promised to crack down on the questionable practice. The problem surfaced last year when Ginnie Mae noticed unusually fast prepayment speeds in its mortgage-backed securities, particularly MBS backed by VA loans. Ginnie found that certain lenders and ...

Rob Zimmer, a former Freddie Mac executive: “Republicans run this town, obviously, and there is no way they want to be identified as the party of taxpayer bailouts for large financial institutions.”

Redwood Trust has approved 185 originators to sell Choice loans directly…

But the non-agency jumbo market saw a healthy 18.6 percent increase in originations…

“We’ve gotten wind that we could see at least one other large money center bank enter the securitization markets,” said Christopher Abate of Redwood Trust…

Redwood Trust has seen strong demand from borrowers and correspondent lenders for its “expanded prime” program that the aggregator introduced last year. The real estate investment trust’s Choice products allow for somewhat looser underwriting than the super-prime mortgages that have dominated the jumbo market after the financial crisis. The Choice program was introduced in April 2016. Volume has increased relatively quickly and could top $1.0 billion this year. Officials say...

The growing reliance on nonbanks could pose a risk to the government housing agencies, according to a recent study by the Urban Institute’s Housing Policy Center. Just four years ago, banks originated 70 percent of new mortgages, the researchers noted. But in 2017 nonbanks are originating 60 percent of all new mortgages and 76 percent of loans destined to be securitized by Ginnie Mae. UI called...

Roughly 27.3 percent of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae loans pooled in securities in the first half of 2017 were a month old at issuance, and 6.4 percent were two or three months old.

If confirmed by the Senate, it would be Montgomery’s second go at the FHA post, a position he held in the administration of George W. Bush.

Information Management Network will contribute proceeds from the conference to aid hurricane relief efforts.