The rating service predicted that in the coming months, more lenders will be willing to offer non-QMs that allow for debt-to-income ratios above 50 percent and credit scores as low as 620.

According to a new report from Compass Point Research & Trading, a gain-on-sale index the firm created has been contracting the past month...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reported big declines in mortgage repurchases and their inventories of unresolved buyback requests during the second quarter of 2015, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis of disclosures filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Freddie reported a 19.1 percent drop in repurchases from the first to the second quarter of 2015, while Fannie’s decline was a more modest 3.9 percent. Together, the two GSEs reported $436.3 million in repurchased or indemnified loans during the second quarter, the lowest amount since Fannie, Freddie and other “securitizers” began reporting repurchase activity in early 2012. On a combined basis, Fannie and Freddie reported new lows in pending repurchases ($732.2 million) and disputed buyback requests...

Generally speaking, declining interest rates are welcomed by most mortgage market participants – unless the drop is both precipitous and unexpected, which is exactly what occurred over the past 10 days, thanks to the worldwide stock market carnage. As the weekend approached, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond was at 2.17 percent, but earlier in the week – while stocks sold off – the yield fell to as low as 1.90 percent. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac watchers are now wondering if given the steep (and unexpected) decline in rates, perhaps the two government-controlled mortgage giants will report large hedging losses for the third quarter.

Mortgage sellers doing business with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw a sharp decline in repurchase activity in the second quarter of 2015 as the buyback focus continued to shift toward more recent production. The two government-sponsored enterprises reported a total of $436.3 million in mortgage repurchases during the second quarter, down 11.2 percent from the previous period. It was the lowest quarterly buyback number since ... [Includes two data charts]

The Blackstone Group has emerged as the “Big Kahuna” of mortgage company acquisitions this year, gobbling up – or agreeing to gobble up – at least five mortgage banking firms or a majority of their assets. To date, most of the purchases have centered on small- to medium-sized originators, except for its latest conquest: a majority stake in Stearns Holdings, LLC, parent company of Stearns Lending, the nation’s 12th largest originator. Although Blackstone is publicly traded ...

The Collingwood Group says disruption may come to the mortgage finance industry because the current business model is too challenging, inefficient, costly and unresponsive to customer and business needs. “With no fundamental changes to origination processes in decades, lost efficiency, growing regulatory hurdles, high costs and low profits, there is little doubt the mortgage industry is ripe for disruption,” the firm said in a recent paper. Marketplace lenders and crowdfunders ...

A proposal from the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision regarding banks’ interest rate risk includes provisions that would be “a step backward,” according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.In June, the BCBS issued a consultative document on the risk management, capital treatment and supervision of interest rate risk in its banking book. The committee of 28 regulatory bodies, including the United States, said the proposal aims to ...

With the stock market suffering major losses the past 10 days, investors in equities are bleeding red ink, but mortgage bankers are salivating at the prospect of higher application volumes thanks to declining interest rates. “We’re at the tail-end of the home-buying season when volume drops, but my members are anticipating an increase in refis,” said Glen Corso, executive director of Community Mortgage Lenders of America. The newfound optimism comes courtesy of China ...

The FHA late this month announced a new tool to supplement Neighborhood Watch’s compare ratio to give lenders a better sense of their performance and, at the same time, ease concerns about lending to higher-risk borrowers. FHA lenders welcomed the long-anticipated performance metric although concerns linger about lender liability. Nonetheless, for The Collingwood Group, a Washington, DC-based advisory firm, the question is whether the tool represents a ...