Three House Democrats have added their own proposal to the growing list of legislative housing finance reforms that, in time, could pave the way for the government to sell off Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while giving new purpose to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The reform proposal by Reps. John Delaney (MD), John Carney (DE) and Jim Himes (CT) would establish a system of government reinsurance for eligible mortgage-backed securities. The idea is to leverage the government’s capacity and the market’s ability to price risk, they said.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should revise their seller/servicer guidelines to allow use of credit scores from more than one provider in order to “foster competition,” according to a bipartisan quartet of House Financial Services Committee members. In a letter sent to Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt, Reps. Ed Royce, R-CA; Spencer Bachus, R-AL; James Himes, D-CT; and Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, said that the GSEs should not be restricted to relying on credit scores provided solely by the Fair Isaac Corp.

A steady decline in GSE refinances throughout 2013 coupled with faltering purchase mortgage activity during the final third of the year helped contribute to an overall dip in the volume of single-family mortgages securitized by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both on a month-to-month and year-end basis, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis. Fannie and Freddie issued $55.8 billion in single-family mortgage-backed securities in December, a 4.9 percent decline from November.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac combined did less business in single-family mortgage-backed securities in 2013 than the previous year while a growing share of business came from small and mid-sized lenders, according to an Inside The GSEs analysis. For the year, the two GSEs produced $1.161 trillion in single-family MBS, down 8.4 percent from their overall production in 2012.

A key factor in the upswing in private MI share of Fannie/Freddie business was the relatively steadier volume in purchase-mortgage securitization compared to refinance loans.

The non-agency MBS market is stuck in "limbo until we know where the GSEs are going,” said Steve Abrahams, head of securitization and MBS research at Deutsche Bank Securities.

Speculators in Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac junior preferred shares will benefit if they can prove loan loss reserves at the two were over-stated.

The integration of TILA and RESPA has "been a goal almost since the time the two statutes were issued, and certainly from the time the good-faith estimate began focusing on loan terms,” said Benjamin Olson of BuckleySandler.

Flagstar, which ranks eighth among all originators according to Inside Mortgage Finance, funded $6.4 billion of home mortgages in 4Q, a 17 percent decline from the prior period.

Some of the largest bank owners of mortgage servicing rights are lining up to sell small- and medium-sized chunks of their portfolios in what likely will turn out to be a record year for sales. Bank of America – which unloaded several huge packages last year – is now in the market with an $8 billion Ginnie Mae MSR portfolio. Wells Fargo late this week confirmed that it will sell a $39 billion package of servicing rights backed by non-agency loans to Ocwen Financial Corp., and hinted that more deals are ahead. An industry advisor who works the servicing market told...