“I don’t think it does a lot of good to play the ‘blame game’ and I don’t think that’s where the solution lies,” said Brian Benson, CEO of ClosingCorp.
When it comes to trading in agency MBS, Deutsche Bank is heading for the exits as a lack of volume in a once-thriving profit center continues to head south. Granted, Deutsche’s departure from the space is part of a huge worldwide restructuring at the German-based bank, but with MBS trading volume falling to a 13-year low last year – and not looking much better this year – the decision was likely an easy one. Chris Whalen, senior managing director at Kroll Bond Rating Agency, said...
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae both reported third quarter earnings this week but the numbers were in stark contrast to one another. Freddie announced a $475 million loss and set off a firestorm of reaction surrounding a possible Treasury draw when its reserves decline to zero. Two days later, Fannie posted net earnings of $2.2 billion for the third quarter. Freddie pointed to losses on derivatives used to hedge the company’s interest rate risk as the reason for its first loss in four years. In addition to falling interest rates, Freddie marked down its investment in derivatives by $4.17 million. Don Layton, Freddie’s CEO, noted that earnings volatility “stems from our usage of derivatives to...
Most publicly-traded companies reported declining net earnings from their mortgage banking operations during the third quarter of 2015, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis. A diverse group of 34 major mortgage lenders that includes most of the top lenders and servicers posted a combined $3.56 billion in income from their mortgage banking activity during the third quarter. That was down 25.8 percent from the second quarter of 2015. The declining profitability was...[Includes one data table]
Vendors that have been supplying the mortgage lending community with the technology necessary to implement the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s integrated disclosure rule are suddenly under regulatory scrutiny over the struggles some lenders have had in being fully compliant with the new regulation. The so-called TRID rule took effect Oct. 3, 2015. A dark cloud began...
Mortgage lenders made it tougher for borrowers to obtain mortgage credit in the second quarter of 2015 compared to the first three months of the year. The mortgage credit availability index overall fell slightly in the second quarter to 5.3, down from 5.5 in the prior quarter, although that level still remains above the low of 4.6 in the third quarter of 2013, according to the Urban Institute’s Housing Finance Policy Center (HFPC). The HFPC uses...
FCI Lender Services, the nation’s largest private-money servicer, is sticking its toe in the lending market by teaming up with Blackrock Mortgage Investment to extend credit to investors in single-family rental properties. This month, the Anaheim, CA-based FCI rolled out two SFR products and one tied to investors looking to buy nonperforming mortgages. According to a rate sheet provided to Inside Mortgage Trends, one of the SFR products requires...
RSS