Wall Street is concerned that the further away a loan is from getting safe harbor protection as a qualified mortgage, the more legal uncertainty and higher costs there will be associated with it.

With the Federal Housing Finance Agency working on a common securitization platform for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, market participants are beginning to ask whether the residential finance sector really needs two government-sponsored enterprises. This week, at a policy forum in Washington, MBS co-inventor Lewis Ranieri and former GSE regulator James Lockhart suggested that the industry doesn’t need both Fannie and Freddie. The thinking is that a common securitization platform will facilitate the transition to a standardized GSE MBS, with slight variations, that would eliminate the current pricing differentials between Fannie and Freddie MBS. Speaking at the Bipartisan Policy Center, Lockhart noted...

When rates spiked this week, margin calls to MBS investors increased. Lenders are nervous but next will will be the real test, mortgage executives told Inside Mortgage Finance.

The amount of home mortgage debt outstanding continued its post-crisis downward spiral in the early months of 2013, although the agency servicing market grew slightly, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. The Federal Reserve reported total home mortgage debt outstanding of $9.868 trillion as of the end of March, down 0.6 percent from the previous quarter. Under pressure from falling house prices and the collapse of the non-agency market, the supply of MDO has been in steady decline since peaking at its all-time high of $11.195 trillion at the end of 2007. Single-family servicing associated...[Includes two data charts]

The pool of mortgages in Shellpoint's first deal has a combined loan-to-value ratio of 65 percent, slightly lower than other recent non-agency MBS.

Because of the "qualified mortgage" rule WesBanco may kill a charitable home loan program that has been in place since 1951.

In addition to having the most failed metrics, CitiMortgage was found to be in “widespread” noncompliance with the timeliness requirement to notify a borrower of any missing documents in his modification application.

While some banks have started to securitize jumbo mortgages, the vast majority of jumbo originations remain in portfolio.

The treatment of balloon loans under new federal rules is one example where regulation is taking a broad brush approach that disadvantages community banks.

PennyMac Financial must be rolling in the dough: the firm is handing out huge stock awards to its top officers.