The top tier of mortgage producers gained some market share in 2016, but call-report data show that community banks continued to play a huge role in the primary market, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. The top 100 lenders produced a hefty $1.622 trillion in first-lien mortgages last year, including their correspondent and wholesale-broker programs. Although their production faltered by 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter, full-year volume was up 18.2 percent from 2015. Banks, thrifts and credit unions ended...[Includes two data tables]

Over the past six quarters, selling Ginnie Mae servicing rights has been a difficult task with buyers turning their noses up at the product, preferring instead to stay within the safe confines of deals tied to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans. According to investment bankers interviewed by Inside Mortgage Finance, the Ginnie market for mortgage servicing rights has been problematic for two main reasons: the fear of lawsuits and sanctions tied to FHA lending, and fast prepayment speeds tied to FHA and VA streamline refis. But now that rates have risen – and mostly stayed that way – there are...

Mortgage lenders continue to gain share in the home-purchase market as investors and other cash buyers have become less prevalent and the supply of distressed properties declines. Some 562,000 new homes were sold in 2016, according to the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Mortgage financing was used for 95.0 percent of the sales, up from a 92.0 percent share the previous year. The cash share of new home sales hit...

Stop the presses: a consensus on GSE reform is here! Really?

A former Fannie executive said it was always his belief the GSE charter allowed for multifamily financing but the idea was to fund “vertical” homes and not “horizontal.”

BAML suggested that one of the reasons prepayment speeds on jumbos have been relatively slow is the presence of self-employed borrowers…

During the fourth quarter of 2016, lenders repurchased just $207.31 million of home loans, a 37.0 percent decline from the third quarter.

Fitch Ratings was the most active provider of credit ratings for non-mortgage ABS and non-agency MBS in 2016, a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis reveals. Fitch edged out Standard & Poor’s in a busy ABS market, garnering a 54.8 percent share of rated transactions last year. The company boosted its ABS ratings business by 4.6 percent compared to 2015, based on dollar volume, nudging its market share up 1.9 percentage points. Fitch’s deepest penetration was...[Includes two data tables]

Sometime during the second quarter of 2019, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will begin issuing the new uniform MBS, a completely fungible security that will replace the separate to-be-announced MBS currently issued by the two government-sponsored entities. The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced the deployment date for Release 2 of the single-security initiative this week. The new implementation date was moved back from the previous estimate of some time in 2018. The delay was...

The average daily trading volume in agency MBS declined to $202.4 billion in February, one of the worst readings over the past six months, according to figures compiled by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. In January, volume was a bit healthier at $229.8 billion, but that was before concerns began to mount about President Trump’s business agenda and how successful the new White House might be in rolling back regulations – financial and otherwise. As Inside MBS & ABS went to press this week, fears were...