A federal employee union and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have agreed to implement a seven-day employee furlough because of a severe mandatory reduction in HUD’s budget in FY 2013. The seven furlough days, which also will affect FHA operations, will apply to HUD’s entire 9,100-person work force and will be spread out to one for each pay period beginning May 24. HUD initially proposed a 13-day furlough plan, which was to start May 10, but agreed to reduce it to seven days and to move the start date to May 24. Under an agreement between HUD and the American Federation of Government Employees Council 222, furlough days will occur on ...

Streamline refinancing helped boost FHA origination volume as lenders reported substantial increases on monthly and year-over-year bases, according to Inside FHA Lending’s latest analysis of FHA data. Despite increases in mortgage insurance premium and other policy changes aimed at reducing FHA market share and strengthening the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund, FHA endorsements were up 18.7 percent in January 2013 from December 2012, and a hefty 38.7 percent from January last year. However, FHA refis accounted for 54.3 percent of total production while purchase mortgages made up ... [1 chart]

Ginnie Mae servicing volume was up modest 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 and 9.1 percent higher from the previous year, with some eye-popping increases reported by several servicers. The top servicers of Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities reported $1.31 trillion in government-backed mortgage debt outstanding in the fourth quarter, up from $1.29 trillion from the previous quarter. Wells Fargo led the pack with $407.2 billion after posting gains on a quarterly and year-over-year basis while second-place Bank of America recorded a total of ... [1 chart]

The long awaited recovery in the jumbo MBS market may finally be here as more banks plan to issue securities.

Quicken is buying a large MSR portfolio from the government-owned Ally Bank and more deals may be in the works.

The Federal Reserve will continue to gobble up MBS and other long-term bonds, which means mortgage rates should stay low.

Industry veteran Sy Naqvi is stepping down as CEO of PNC Mortgage.

Last summer, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued an advisory concerning warehouse lines of credit that was all but ignored by most players in the market. That is, until now. In a research note, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods said the “new” OCC rules could force Texas Capi-tal Bank to increase the risk weighting of its warehouse lines to 100 percent, from its current designa-tion of 37 percent.

Can Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac capture $93 billion in deferred tax assets - money that ultimately will flow through to the U.S. Treasury?

Stable interest rates are making refinancing less attractive to the newest mortgage borrowers, which should keep prepayment rates very low.