On a year-to-date basis, mortgage sales were down 63.6 percent from the first half of 2013.

In short, investors – if they bought mortgage stocks at their peaks – are looking at substantial losses...

In the last quarter, for instance, Fannie and Freddie posted combined net earnings of $5.1 billion – most of which was swept into a Treasury account.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities remained the preferred investment choice of the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks during the second quarter of 2014, with a very slight decline from the previous quarter, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside The GSEs based on data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Meanwhile, Ginnie Mae securities posted an increase within the FHLBank system during the three-month period ending June 30, 2014.

Together, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in August posted a combined increase in the volume of single-family mortgages securitized, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis. Fannie and Freddie issued $61.1 billion in single-family mortgage-backed securities in August, a 5.5 percent increase from July.However, August's MBS issuance was down 56.7 percent on a year-to-date basis.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were both active this week with multifamily MBS transactions, but they’ll have to double-time it if they plan to match last year’s levels. The odds are against them. Fannie’s multifamily new business volume came to $13.8 billion through August 2014, compared with $20.4 billion the year before. The government-sponsored enterprise would have to crank out another $15 billion in the last four months of 2014 to match the 2013 total of $28.8 billion. For rival Freddie, multifamily new business activity totaled...

Commercial banks hate mortgages. No, they don't. Yes, they do. No they don't. Yes, they do...

Fitch Ratings this week proposed changes in how it models home prices for loans to be included in new non-agency MBS. The change means more regions being classified as having sustainable home prices, which could lead to lower credit enhancement requirements on new securities. “The updated Sustainable Home Price model shows a stronger relationship to historical home prices and effectively distinguishes between periods of sustainable and unsustainable home prices,” the rating service said. “Under the new methodology, Fitch’s estimation of overvaluation is typically lower than in the previous model build.” Fitch has incorporated...

Moody’s Investors Service – which has been on the sidelines in the sputtering jumbo MBS market this year – has edged up to become the most active rating service in the non-mortgage ABS market, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. Moody’s rated 71 ABS over the first half of the year, deals with a total issuance volume of $66.15 billion. That represented 64.5 percent of total non-mortgage ABS issued in the first six months of 2014. Moody’s had its biggest market shares in vehicle finance ABS and student loan deals. Standard & Poor’s ranked...[Includes two data charts]

Although investors continue to pay premium – or close to it – prices for newly originated mortgage servicing rights, very few residential lenders have tried to securitize the underlying cash flows, leaving some market observers scratching their heads. “There are very few deals out there that I’m aware of,” said one servicing advisor, requesting his name not be used. “If a company needs cash, it’s a good option, but there’s just not much going on.” So far this year, just a handful of MSR-backed bonds have come...