FHA loans saw an improvement in delinquencies even as the mortgage industry reported an increase in the overall delinquency rate for single-family mortgages at the end of the first quarter of 2013, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s latest national delinquency survey. Among loan types, the FHA saw the largest improvement on a seasonally adjusted basis as its delinquency rate dropped to 10.97 percent in the first quarter, down 20 basis points from the previous quarter. This was good news for an agency that has been battling to reduce losses and stabilize its Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. However, the refreshing change was ...

Regulation by Mortgagee Letter. The Department of Housing and Urban Development this week urged House lawmakers to grant it statutory authority to make temporary changes to the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program through mortgagee letters while working to formalize the change through rulemaking. In a hearing before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance this week, Charles Coulter, HUD deputy assistant secretary for single-family housing, sought specific authority to limit the amount that may be drawn from ...

One investor paid $100,000 per unit for a special class of Fannie Mae preferred.

In exploring how to attract more private capital into the housing finance system, policymakers should permit the jumbo mortgage market to stand on its own absent a government guaranty and make any future government backing explicit, experts told members of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance and Investment this week. Given that loans over the old $417,000 conforming limit account for a quarter of the dollar volume of mortgages per year, a slow and measured hand off of this segment to private capital is a low-maintenance way to reduce the government’s mortgage footprint, according to Mark Willis, resident research fellow at the New York University Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. Inside Mortgage Finance estimates that loans exceeding $417,000 accounted for 16.8 percent of originations in 2012. “Opening up the market above $417,000 should provide...

Feedback from residential servicers indicates that the number of new loan modifications on mortgages in non-agency MBS this year will be near levels seen last year.

Guaranty fees need to be raised by roughly 10 basis points in order for the pricing between agency and non-agency deals to be comparable, according to a new report.

Is the warehouse lending community closed to new subprime lenders, even if they have high downpayment requirements?

A planned MBS from Shellpoint could provide more liquidity for loans made to self-employed borrowers.

One mortgage expert warns that lowering GSE loan limits one step at a time to $417,000 could leave parts of the residential market underserved.

If. Sen. Franken has his way, the MBS rating system will change. Meanwhile, top executives at Impac Mortgage clean up.