Mortgage banker David Kittle, a candidate for Ginnie Mae president, has informed the White House and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson that he is no longer interested in the position, according to industry sources. Kittle, a founding partner and vice chairman of the Mortgage Collaborative, an industry vendor, could not be reached for comment. Kittle was first approached by the White House nine months ago about the job. A background check on the potential nominee was reportedly underway but he was never officially nominated. The industry veteran began his mortgage-banking career as a loan officer with American Fletcher Mortgage Co. He is a past chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association, completing his term in October 2009. A Republican, he also once served as president of the Kentucky Mortgage Bankers Association. Kittle’s withdrawal leaves the ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac set aside a combined $1.9 billion to cover potential losses to MBS collateral from the powerful hurricanes that slammed the U.S. and its territories this fall. Ginnie Mae, meanwhile, hasn’t issued an update on affected loans in several weeks, but the government guarantor is trying to stay optimistic.

Real estate mortgage investment trusts continued to build up their agency MBS investment port-folios during the third quarter, though most REITs had a more difficult time in the less-liquid non-agency MBS market.

Credit Suisse and MBIA Insurance Corp. continued their wrangling in New York state appellate court in a $235 million MBS securities lawsuit brought by the bond guarantor in 2009.

Nonprime lenders allow credit scores as low as 500 and loan-to-value ratios up to 90.0 percent, but new originations don’t typically reach such extremes. According to an analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets, the average credit score on loans in nonprime/Alt A mortgage-backed securities issued in recent years was 701.1. The average combined LTV ratio for the loans was 74.9 percent and the average debt-to-income ratio was 37.0 percent. The analysis ... [Includes one data chart]

Annaly Capital Management increased its agency MBS holdings by 16.1 percent in the third quarter. Its closest competitor among real estate investment trusts specializing in the space, AGNC In-vestment Corp., pushed up its investment by 13.3 percent.

The average daily trading volume in agency MBS totaled $222.5 billion in October, a slight dip from the month prior, but the third best reading of the year, according to figures compiled by the Secu-rities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

There are many unpredictable variables and economic factors outside the control of the Federal Reserve, which makes it hard to project the impact of winding down the U.S. central bank’s historic investment in agency MBS. But economic experts at Fannie Mae are cautiously expressed anticipating greater volatility, an inevitable financial shock and potential changes in the Fed’s strategy as markets evolve.

Correspondent-based lending operations are accounting for a growing share of the FHA and VA home loans pooled in Ginnie Mae mortgage-backed securities, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside FHA/VA Lending. In fact, correspondent originations are the only production channel to see year-over-year growth in FHA and VA business through the first nine months of 2017. Retail and wholesale-broker production is down for both FHA and VA loans. Correspondent programs are most dominant in the FHA market, perhaps reflecting a preference among large producers to have recourse to a primary-market lender if the government later finds defects in how the loan was originated. Correspondents accounted for 48.7 percent of FHA loans pooled in Ginnie MBS during the first nine months of the year, up from 43.1 percent in all of 2016. Volume was up 1.7 percent from the ... [Charts]

A new net tangible benefit test for ensuring that a VA borrower benefits from a refinancing appears to be the obvious solution to the VA’s churning problem, according to analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML). Modeled after the FHA net tangible benefit test, the test seems to be a “foregone conclusion” for VA, analysts said. A Ginnie Mae/VA task force is currently working to resolve the problem, which is causing rapid prepayments in Ginnie mortgage-backed securities and raising serious doubts as to whether aggressive refinancing truly benefits veterans and servicemembers. “There is a critical need to ensure that veteran borrowers are not harmed by repeated refinancings through VA’s Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan program,” said Mortgage Bankers Association President/CEO David Stevens during a recent appearance before the House Financial Services Committee. IRRRLs, also referred to ...