Freddie Mac's low activity fee could add more than $2 million to its bottom line.

Thanks to rising interest rates, the book value of mortgage servicing rights increased in the first quarter. Could more sales be on the way?

Community banks are getting slapped with a "low activity" fee from Freddie Mac and the ICBA is not happy.

When interest rates rise, so do the value of mortgage servicing rights.

Will cash-out refinancings ever return? Meanwhile, a new petition posted on the White House website that might helps GSE shareholders is taking off.

The bipartisan legislation to replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that’s taking shape in the Senate would leverage key reform projects already underway at the government-sponsored enterprises, but it doesn’t tackle some of the key transition issues the market would face by putting the GSEs out of business. The reform plan being put together by Sens. Bob Corker, R-TN, and Mark Warner, D-VA, has at its core the risk-sharing projects currently being designed by the GSEs, according to a copy of the draft legislation provided to Inside MBS & ABS. The Secondary Mortgage Market Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act of 2013 would also implement the common securitization platform that Fannie and Freddie are building under the direction of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The legislation would put...

A slowdown in production at Freddie Mac was the main factor behind a decline in total agency MBS issuance in May, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis. A total of $148.28 billion of single-family agency MBS were issued last month, down 2.6 percent from April’s level. May was the slowest month for agency MBS issuance so far in 2013, with slightly less volume than March’s $148.35 billion. Freddie’s production was...[Includes one data chart]

Lloyds Banking Group was able to sell a sizable portfolio of vintage non-agency MBS this week at attractive prices. Additional sales of vintage non-agency MBS are expected as a strong housing market and demand from investors has pushed prices above the marks some institutions had placed on their holdings. Last week, Lloyds offered a bid list of $8.7 billion in non-agency MBS, largely non-investment grade, on an all-or-nothing basis. The British financial institution said the sale will close this week for a cash consideration of $5.05 billion, 22.3 percent higher than the book value that Lloyds had assigned the assets. “While Lloyds’ book value may not be...

At least 170 non-agency MBS serviced by Ocwen Financial took combined losses of more than $1.0 billion in May due to accounting for principal forbearance that occurred before July 2012. The reporting issue allowed mezzanine bonds to continue receiving interest payments, and industry participants are concerned that the accounting could be an issue on other non-agency MBS. Moody’s Investors Service said the newly realized losses relate to loss mitigation by Homeward Residential. Ocwen acquired Homeward at the end of 2012. The servicing transfer prompted a disclosure by Ocwen to Wells Fargo, the trustee on the deals previously serviced by Homeward, in the May remittance reports on the deals. Wells said...

At first, residential origination volumes were slow at Citadel Loan Servicing Corp., a new player in a lonely market: nonprime production. But that was two months ago, when the Irvine, CA-based company first opened its doors. “People are finally calling us,” said Dan Perl, CEO of the privately held nonbank. By the time June ends, the company will have funded almost $6 million for the month, maybe as much as $8 million. The origination numbers, of course, are miniscule compared to monthly conventional volume, but in the “new” nonprime space Citadel is probably doing more business than the two-dozen or so nonprime or hard money lenders that are quietly toiling away in selected markets. For the industry to revive...