Riding a wave of heavy purchase-mortgage activity, Ginnie Mae issuers produced a record $128.23 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities during the third quarter of 2015, according to a new Inside FHA/VA Lending ranking and analysis. The third-quarter figure, which includes FHA home-equity conversion mortgage MBS, was up 6.5 percent from the second quarter of this year. The previous record was $125.68 billion, set back in the third quarter of 2009. Loan-level MBS data, which do not include HECMs and have truncated loan amounts, show hefty gains in purchase-mortgage activity that more than offset sharp declines in refinance business. The flow of FHA purchase mortgages jumped 37.7 percent from the second to the third quarter, and VA purchase mortgages were up 37.9 percent over the same period. Meanwhile, refinance volume fell ... [ 2 charts ]

Ginnie Mae has announced revised rules for issuers seeking approval of changes in their business status due to an adversarial relationship with agencies, mergers, asset transfers or a change in ownership or control. The agency has been receiving many issuer requests and they are getting complicated, according to Ted Tozer, Ginnie Mae president. Issuers must comply with the updated guidance in order to remain an eligible participant in the Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities program. The guidance took effect immediately. Previously, issuers were required to notify Ginnie Mae in writing within five days of any material adverse change in their business relationships with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, VA, Rural Development, the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Public and Indian Housing or any other regulatory agency. Under the revised guidance, the ...

The deal includes a provision allowing Bayview to sell loans out of the MBS one year from now.

An earlier version of the bill that Corker tried to fast-track through the Senate did not include the prohibition on using g-fees to pay for unrelated government spending.

The congressman said the decision to sell thousands of loans at a time at sharp discounts to the highest bidder “continues to enrich Wall Street at the expense of neighborhoods and community-based organizations.”

Or as Marc Savitt of the National Association of Independent Housing Professionals put it: “Nothing will pass as long as Obama still has a pen…”

Some 71 lenders are contributing loans to the deal, led by Stonegate Mortgage with a 6.9 percent share.

Through the first half of 2015, banks and thrifts sold $364.35 billion of home loans, up 37.8 percent from the same period last year.

The CHLA suggests, among other things, that the U.S. Treasury stop sweeping all GSE profits and instead put that money in a capitalization reserve account...

Standard & Poor’s has removed Ocwen Financial form its “CreditWatch” list.