The Securities and Exchange Commission proposed controversial changes that would place greater burdens on MBS issuers and potentially increase privacy concerns for borrowers.
A fair question to ask is this: If DOJ goes after Mozilo, why not go after the owners of Ameriquest/Argent which created so much of the faulty subprime product that Greenwich securitized?
In its statement announcing the settlement, BofA stressed, “The claims relate primarily to conduct that occurred at Countrywide and Merrill Lynch prior to Bank of America's acquisition of those entities.”
Among the banks reporting that the rules had no effect on their approval rates, half indicated that lending policies would have been tighter without the safe harbor for mortgages that pass the GSEs’ automated underwriting models.
A big deal or ho-hum: Fannie Mae in late July said it will allow for shorter waiting periods involving mortgage debt charge-off accounts and mortgage debt that is discharged through a bankruptcy.
Fannie and Freddie held a combined $252 billion in Alt A and subprime mortgage assets at the end of June, down 18.3 percent from the second quarter of 2013.
The gradual slowdown in agency MBS purchases by the Federal Reserve helped real estate investment trusts grow their MBS portfolios during the second quarter of 2014. A new Inside MBS & ABS analysis of REIT earnings reports found that the industry held $286.3 billion of MBS as of the end of June. That was up 9.7 percent from the previous quarter and marked the first increase in REIT MBS holdings since the third quarter of 2012, when the aggregate industry portfolio was $374.2 billion. At the top of the sector, Annaly Capital Management reported...
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