Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan this week reiterated his agencys request for additional legislative authority to regulate the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program by mortgagee letter so that much-needed changes can be implemented immediately. Rather than go through the tedious legislative process of amending HECM legislation to improve the program and reduce HECM losses, expanding HUDs authority would enable the department to undertake immediate reforms, such as restricting lump sum payments, requiring financial assessments of HECM applicants and requiring borrowers to ...
Ginnie Mae is seeking feedback from dealers, issuers and investors about whether to continue to maintain two separate mortgage-backed securities programs or to consolidate them under a single security. Comments are also being sought on other possible options. Bloomberg.com recently reported that Ginnie Mae sent out questionnaires to Wall Street broker-dealers for their input on the future of both the Ginnie Mae I and Ginnie Mae II MBS programs. The agency has been considering whether it should merge the programs for some time. The Ginnie Mae I single-issuer pool program with stringent pooling requirements began in ...
The latest unofficial nominee purportedly under White House consideration to replace the Federal Housing Finance Agencys acting head is far from a shoo-in, but industry observers say that Moodys Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi is the most credible candidate yet who could not only clear Senate confirmation but also advance final reform of the government-sponsored enterprises. Zandi would neither confirm nor deny to Inside Mortgage Finance this week that hes being considered by the Obama administration to replace FHFA Acting Director Ed DeMarco as the agencys permanent director. However, sources say...
No one is suggesting that Wells Fargo will begin lopping off large chunks of its $1.9 trillion residential servicing portfolio in a fashion similar to what Bank of America has done the past two years, but clearly selling mortgage servicing rights is on its to-do list. The big question is how much Wells Fargo is willing to part with. The bank declined to discuss the matter with Inside Mortgage Finance, but confirmed that it seeks to hire what it calls a project manager to oversee the effort. A spokeswoman for Wells downplayed the significance of the hire, saying the person who eventually joins the staff will be a non-executive. At least four servicing professionals said...
Officials at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority met this week to consider increasing pricing transparency on fixed-income products, including publishing transaction information on private-placement ABS. Investors have called for greater pricing transparency on ABS issuance private placements and SEC-registered deals while issuers warn that such disclosures could increase costs or reduce their willingness to issue securities. In addition to meeting with the SEC, FINRAs board of directors met...
The Federal Housing Finance Agency is moving forward with its search to find a CEO to run the new common mortgage securitization platform that will one day be shared by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and, potentially, other issuers. But its anybodys guess how much the regulator is willing to pay to get a top-flight candidate, according to industry observers. At least two individuals recently were approached about the job, according to these observers. Funding for the project will presumably come...
Issuers of non-agency MBS won two key court battles against federal agencies because the regulators suits to recover losses suffered by failed institutions came too late. Last week, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California rejected all claims the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. brought against Countrywide Financial related to 10 MBS certificates sold to the failed Colonial Bank. All of the FDICs claims are time-barred, the court said. In FDIC v. Countrywide, the court said...
Credit quality for global structured finance securities fell for the sixth consecutive year in 2012, again led by U.S. residential MBS, according to Standard & Poors. Looking at downgrade and default trends from 1978 through 2012, S&P found that downgrades were less pervasive last year than in previous years. Nonetheless, the mild but slow global economic recovery continues to hurt the performance of MBS and other structured finance securities for the sixth straight year. Its lagging effect means that credit quality may continue to see moderate deterioration, the rating agency said. While poor credit quality appears...
GSE single-family securitizations rose just under 1.0 percent during the first three months of 2013, compared to the previous quarter, yet it was the single highest level since the second quarter of 2009 as mortgage lenders delivered $355.8 billion in home loans to Fannie Maes and Freddie Macs securitization programs, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis. Fannie and Freddie activity peaked in January with GSE volume declining slightly in both February and March. Januarys huge increase compared to the previous month may reflect lenders intent to hold secondary market sales until the new GSE representation and warranties went into effect on Jan. 1.
In a move designed to allow qualifying members to sell fixed-rate, conforming mortgage loans into the secondary market, the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas announced last week it has joined the Mortgage Partnership Finance Program and is now offering the MPF Xtra product. Under the MPF Xtra program, loans are sold through the FHLBank of Chicago to Fannie Mae as a third-party investor.