House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, unveiled long-awaited legislation on government-sponsored enterprise reform that would enhance Ginnie Mae’s role in the secondary mortgage market. Hensarling referred to the bill – the Bipartisan Housing Reform Act of 2018 – as a “bipartisan compromise housing-reform plan” that preserves the government guarantee in the secondary mortgage market. The chairman collaborated with Rep. John Delaney, D-MD, in crafting the bill, which calls for the repeal of the federal charters of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The bill would shift the secondary market to a system that allows pooling of qualified conventional mortgages backed by government-approved private guarantors with regulated capital. These loans could be pooled in mortgage-backed securities with explicit government guarantees provided by Ginnie. The new MBS program would be ...

Big Four accounting firm Deloitte has paid $149.5 million to the federal government to settle allegations of misconduct in connection with its role as the independent outside auditor of defunct FHA lender Taylor, Bean & Whitaker. The settlement amount includes $115 million in restitution paid to the Department of Housing and Urban Development on Aug. 13, 2018, according to the HUD inspector general. The rest of the payment went to the Department of Justice, which brought the charges on behalf of the government. Deloitte admitted neither to any liability nor to wrongdoing. TBW was an FHA direct endorsement lender and a Ginnie Mae-approved mortgage-backed securities issuer and servicer. It originated, underwrote, acquired and sold mortgages to Freddie Mac and other investors, which used the loans to support MBS issuance or held them as investments. In its heyday, TBW was one of the ...

VA Announces Special Relief Following Hurricane Lane. The Department of Veterans Affairs has issued guidance reminding servicers of measures they may use to provide relief to VA borrowers affected by Hurricane Lane. VA Announces Modification Comparison Chart; Development Updates. To provide additional clarification, VA has created a chart summarizing its different modification options. The chart will be available to servicers at https://www.benefits.va.gov/ HOMELOANS/servicers_valeri_guides.asp on Monday, Sept. 10, 2018. Also, VALERI Manifest 18.3 will be released on Sept. 8. VALERI will be unavailable from 7 p.m. EST to 11 p.m. EST. The following system enhancements will be included: CQ 13433 – Updates the redemption expiration date business rule logic in the Transfer of Custody event to pass if loan is terminated via deed in lieu; and CQ 13535 – Updates the ...

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae securitized a total of $82.55 billion of single-family home-purchase loans in August, their highest monthly volume of such business in the post-crisis era, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis of agency MBS disclosures. [Includes two data charts.]

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, late this week finally unveiled his long-awaited housing-finance reform proposal, calling for a repeal of the federal charters of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Problems with rating models that prompted corrections on more than 650 residential MBS in recent years helped lead to a settlement between Moody’s Investors Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Non-agency MBS participants are developing a representation-and-warranty framework by learning from ongoing issues in pre-crisis non-agency MBS. The latest framework developed by the law firm of Alston & Bird features a number of new provisions to help address conflicts regarding breaches of reps and warrants.

Longer auto loan terms and softer collection practices by some lenders are slowing amortization schedules and backloading losses in certain subprime auto loan ABS, said S&P Global Ratings.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose more risk to the housing finance system today than they did a decade ago, according to some witnesses at a House Financial Services Committee hearing this week.

The Blackstone Group in the past few months has taken a hard look at the operations of Incenter, a portfolio company it controls that has diversified businesses that include loan and MBS trading/investments as well as servicing brokerage, according to market sources familiar with the situation.