UWM is offering “rate incentives” for jumbo borrowers with FICO scores north of 740, and a promise to close the loan in 25 days or less…

The average credit score for purchase loans securitized last month was 749.7, the first time that measure has been below 750 in over two years.

“This is a seminal change,” one GSE observer told us.

“The QM rule needs to stand on its own two feet … The FHFA should not be in charge of setting national mortgage underwriting,” said MBA chief Dave Stevens.

In the first quarter, 11.2 percent of Fannie/Freddie purchase loans had credit scores below 700 and LTV ratios of 81 percent or higher. That was up from 7.4 percent in the fourth quarter…

To significantly reduce credit risk, all mortgages sold to Ginnie 2.0 would require a private credit enhancement attached to the loans…

PennyMac Financial is a top-10 ranked lender and may soon break into the top-10 in servicing as well…

Analysts at Moody’s Investors Service believe that the Structured Finance Industry Group’s draft proposal on the CFPB’s integrated disclosure rule, otherwise known as TRID, generally is up to the task of addressing the relevant risks for U.S. residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), notwithstanding the uncertainty associated with the pending clarifying rulemaking from the bureau. The rule merges the mortgage disclosures mandated by the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. “SFIG’s draft proposal to standardize the framework for reviewing and grading loans for TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule compliance is adequate to identify those compliance risks that are likely to cause losses to RMBS trusts, aside from one grading provision with which we disagree,” said Moody’s Credit ...

Real estate investment trusts that specialize in the residential MBS market held $232.44 billion of agency and non-agency MBS at the end of March, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. The MBS holdings of 16 top mortgage REITs were down 0.3 percent from the fourth quarter and off 11.9 percent from March 2015. However, several REITs boosted their positions during early 2016 and the industry is slated to see a major merger of two firms ... [Includes one data chart]

Issuance of jumbo MBS has fallen off since mortgage disclosure requirements set by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau took effect in October. While the slowdown in jumbo MBS issuance has been blamed on TRID, there still appears to be plenty of demand from secondary market investors for jumbo whole loans. Redwood Trust’s jumbo origination and sales volume has been humming along without much impact from the CFPB’s combined Truth in Lending Act and ...