The program is intended to provide smaller mortgage lenders that lack direct access to the secondary mortgage market with another option for their home buying customers.

Mortgage loan officers have been spared from lay-offs. But how long will it last? Brokers get dismissed again?

Publicly traded REITs like Redwood Trust would fill the void if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lower loan limits next year. But they will be competing against portfolio lenders.

It appears the House of Representatives is giving up on GSE reform this year. However, the Senate could move forward, even though passage is considered a long shot, at best.

Nonbanks are making progress in picking up market share, but it's uncertain how much more turf commercial banks might cede.

Nonbanks are stepping up to the plate on agency MBS. Meanwhile, a handful of large "term" loans are being put together, allowing investors to finance MSRs.

The firm’s deal will be financed with bonds that are expected to have a five-year maturity, a floating-rate coupon and a rating from a major rating service.

Securities issuers won a major victory as the revised proposed rule on risk retention issued by federal regulators last week removed the requirement for a premium capture cash reserve account. The highly controversial PCCRA was replaced with a fair value calculation requirement for retention which regulators said will increase the value of retained risk compared with the original proposal. “The ASF is extremely pleased to see the elimination of the premium capture cash reserve account provisions from the re-proposed rule,” said Tom Deutsch, executive director of the American Securitization Forum. “The provisions would have completely eliminated the economic incentives of securitizers to issue residential MBS and commercial MBS.” The original proposal generally measured...

New issuance of agency single-family MBS fell in August to its lowest monthly total of the year, according to a new market analysis and ranking by Inside MBS & ABS. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae generated a total of $130.88 billion of new single-family MBS last month, down 9.3 percent from July. It was the lowest monthly production volume since December 2012. New issuance by the government-sponsored enterprises fluctuated sharply at that time as lenders jockeyed around rising guaranty fees and the implementation of more favorable reps and warranties policies. All three agencies saw...[Includes one data chart]

The GSEs continued to see solid increases in purchase-mortgage business, which increased by almost 7 percent from July to August. It was the fifth straight monthly gain for the two.