The next action on risk-retention standards required by the Dodd-Frank Act could be more than a year away, according to agendas recently released by federal regulators. Meanwhile, new disclosure requirements for MBS and ABS could be released soon by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Federal regulators listed risk-retention requirements as a “long-term action” on their fall regulatory agendas, with no indication of when the next action will be taken or what that action might be. The comment period on a revised proposal for risk-retention requirements closed...
New residential MBS production represented 78.4 percent of primary-market mortgage originations during the first nine months of 2013, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. A total of $1.243 trillion of residential MBS were issued during the first three quarters of this year, with only $12.2 billion coming from the non-agency MBS market. At the same time, an estimated $1.585 trillion of new home loans were made by lenders, yielding a 78.4 percent securitization rate. The securitization rate was...[Includes one data chart]
The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Popular Democracy have filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act to compel the Federal Housing Finance Agency to provide details about its efforts to block municipalities from using eminent domain to prevent foreclosures. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the lawsuit seeks information regarding the FHFA’s relationship with big banks and MBS investors and whether such interests influenced the agency’s opposition. The suit was filed on behalf of community housing advocates in California, New Jersey and New York. Certain municipalities with large African-American and Latino populations, including Richmond, CA, and Irvington, NJ, are considering...
Real estate investment trusts that focus on investing in MBS held a combined $306.3 billion of mortgage securities in portfolio at the end of the third quarter, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. That total was down 6.4 percent from the end of June, as the industry has lost nearly all of the huge volume of MBS that were acquired in early 2012. At the end of 2011, REITs held $297.5 billion of MBS and over the next six months grew their combined portfolio by $76.7 billion, reaching a record $375.2 billion at the midway point in 2012. It’s been...[Includes one data chart]
The rating services will put an emphasis on documentation of compliance with requirements for qualified mortgages and new ability-to-repay provisions. Credit-enhancement requirements appear as though they will be unchanged for the majority of jumbo MBS issued beginning in 2014, though issuers might have to make adjustments to prove to the rating services that they are compliant with new requirements from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “Since most of what is being originated today already meets the standards of the rules, DBRS believes that the real challenge lies in unequivocally demonstrating QM and ATR compliance to the market and establishing confidence in the soundness of the systems and procedures that will be used to determine and ensure compliance,” DBRS said. The rating service recently released...
The top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee acknowledged this week they will not make their ambitious deadline of clearing a housing-finance reform bill by the end of this year. But the senior lawmakers said they remain “bullish” on moving legislation to the Senate floor sooner rather than later in 2014. Speaking at a Bipartisan Policy Center event, Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, D-SD, blamed “a couple of curveballs,” including the 16-day government shutdown, for falling short of the deadline he and Idaho Republican Mike Crapo set for the committee. The committee did manage to hold 12 hearings on reform and what to do with the two government-sponsored enterprises that have been in conservatorship for a little over five years. “Beyond private capital, we are also working...
In the third quarter of 2013, the level of home-mortgage debt outstanding grew for the first time since early 2008 as the housing industry continued to climb out of the crater. The Federal Reserve this week announced there was $9.864 trillion of single-family mortgages outstanding at the end of September, a tiny 0.1 percent increase from the previous quarter. But after four and half years of decline, the gain seemed monumental. The central bank noted that all the increase was in first mortgages, while the supply of home-equity loans outstanding continued to shrink. Servicing attached to Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac programs continued...[Includes one data chart]
In certain ways, HUD’s "qualified mortgage" definition is less restrictive than the CFPB edict, including setting no limit on a borrower’s debt-to-income ratio.
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