The Aug. 28, 2013, release of the re-proposed credit risk-retention rule by federal banking and housing regulators was eagerly awaited by investors and the mortgage industry. But it’s also raised some new questions for securitizers and investors, according to a new white paper from CoreLogic. The proposed rule sets out the risk-retention provisions for securitizers that underwrite ABS, but it also exempts from those provisions all securities issued by the housing agencies, which is to say, MBS generated by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae. “Given that exemption, what are the incentives for private securitization where there is capital relief in the alternative?” the white paper asked. CoreLogic notes...

Unhappy with the fact that newly approved Ginnie Mae MBS issuers aren’t using the program very much, the agency plans to hire more account executives to work with mortgage firms and step up its outreach. “We’ve hired about five new account executives over the past six months,” Ginnie Mae president Ted Tozer told Inside MBS & ABS. “That gives us 12.” Tozer noted...

A continued decline in GSE refinance activity helped contribute to an overall dip in the volume of single-family mortgages securitized by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in November, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis. Fannie and Freddie issued $58.7 billion in single-family mortgage-backed securities in November, a 13.4 percent decline from October and a 6.2 percent decrease for the first 11 months of 2013.

Concerns about red tape from lenders have prompted an increasing share of homebuyers to use all cash to purchase a home, according to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. Some 29.3 percent of home purchases completed in November relied solely on cash, based on a three-month moving average. That was the third monthly increase in the share of cash transactions. Tom Popik, research director of Campbell Surveys, said...

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...

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 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...

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]

Severe decreases in the FHA loan limits in numerous counties across the country have spurred industry demand for the Department of Housing and Urban Development to disclose the methodology and process it used to determine the new loan limits. Although HUD’s announcement of lower FHA loan limits for 2014 had been long expected, mortgage industry participants were caught off guard by the substantial reductions in FHA loan limits caused by the statutory change in how the limits are calculated and by revised median house prices. For 2014, HUD announced that the national ceiling limit for single-family mortgages in high-cost areas would decline to ... [1 chart]

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]