loanDepot’s initial public offering of stock – $100 million is the target capital raise – is viewed as a bullish sign for the mortgage industry, especially nonbanks, but don’t expect a long line of imitators, at least not yet. Advisor Joe Garrett, who runs Garrett, McAuley & Co., isn’t quite sure what to make of the recent IPO news, stating bluntly: “I’m sure it will get a lot of ‘wannabes’ hot and bothered.” Garrett noted...

Private investors in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stock are raising concerns about the expansion of risk-transfer activity at the two government-sponsored enterprises, warning that it should not be viewed as the answer to housing reform. The credit-risk transfer programs are often cited as a path to housing finance reform because they bring new private capital to the mortgage business, laying off some of the risk held by the GSEs and, ultimately, by taxpayers. “Some have suggested...

According to a rate sheet, the minimum loan amount on the rental properties is $250,000 while the minimum number of properties is five...

The PSPA has been challenged in court by investors that are speculating in the common and preferred stock of the two GSEs.

Actual GSE sales volume for the top five was down 2.2 percent from the second quarter, but overall Fannie/Freddie business was down slightly more, 3.8 percent.

Ginnie Mae has expressed concern about the influx of nonbanks into its MBS program and their ability to remain as active participants.

On its largest MSR auction of the year, MountainView said the high bid came in at a multiple of 3.95-times the servicing fee.

The mortgage refinance business began losing steam in the third quarter, but purchase-mortgage lending helped sustain agency single-family MBS production during the period, according to a new market analysis and ranking by Inside MBS & ABS. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae combined to issue $351.70 billion of single-family MBS during the third quarter of 2015, a slight 0.3 percent decline from the previous period. Even with the slowdown, year-to-date agency MBS volume of $976.40 billion had already topped the $929.49 billion in gross issuance for all of last year. The bright spot was...[Includes two data tables]

Wall Street remains concerned about the level of standardization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac operations in a single-security environment where investors would be expected to treat them as completely interchangeable. The Structured Finance Industry Group this week reiterated its concern about the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s plan to avoid “complete alignment” of the two government-sponsored enterprises’ operations. In a May 2015 update on the single security, the FHFA said it would carefully assess business decisions that could lead to different prepayment speeds, but that buy-out and removal policies at the two GSEs are essentially the same. That isn’t...

Ginnie Mae is considering the implementation of stress testing for MBS issuers to see whether they can withstand the worst economic and financial market conditions. Over the next couple of years, Ginnie Mae will develop a framework for stress testing modeled after the Dodd-Frank Act’s supervisory stress testing currently required of bank holding companies, said Gregory Keith, senior vice president and chief risk officer, during a recent Ginnie Mae summit. The test will subject...