With same-sex marriage becoming law throughout the land, the question for the mortgage industry is how this would help the housing market. There is very little market research on homeownership rates among gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender and same-sex couples. But a recent survey by the National Association of Gay & Lesbian Real Estate Professionals found 54 percent of LGBT respondents own some type of real estate and, of those, 8 percent own a vacation home. In…
About 90 percent of the housing markets in the U.S today are considered affordable, according to RealtyTrac. Speaking at a recent real estate conference in Miami, RealtyTrac Vice President Daren Blomquist said places like San Diego and Seattle are on the threshold of exceeding their historic affordability. …
Residential MBS production continued to gain speed in the second quarter of 2015 while non-mortgage securitization remained strong, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis. A total of $419.42 billion of single-family MBS and non-mortgage ABS were issued during the second quarter, an increase of 21.2 percent from the first three months of the year. It was the strongest new issuance total since the third quarter of 2013 and marked the fifth straight quarterly increase since the market hit a cyclical low at the beginning of last year. Most of the gain came from the agency MBS sector, which totaled $352.73 billion in new issuance, a gain of 29.7 percent from the first quarter. All three agencies posted hefty gains, with the biggest coming at Ginnie Mae, where new issuance jumped 46.7 percent to hit $120.36 billion. A lot of Ginnie’s growth is coming from an unusual surge of refinance activity, which accounted for ... [ charts]
An increase in short-term interest rates will have an outsized impact on commercial MBS among structured finance assets, according to Moody’s Investors Service. In a report released last week, the rating service said higher interest rates will be credit negative for existing deal performance and new issuance for commercial MBS and largely neutral for residential MBS and most ABS sectors. As interest rates rise, Moody’s said term default risk on loans backing new issue commercial MBS will increase because the loans’ debt service coverage ratios will be lower than the DSCRs at the time of origination of loans in outstanding deals. “Rates on loans backing new conduit deals will increase, thereby reducing DSCR in relation to a given property’s cash flow,” the rating service said. “New conduit deals are typically backed by loan pools that were originated no more than ...
The U.S. Conference of Mayors has joined a growing number of entities urging the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and certain major banks to stop selling distressed and nonperforming mortgages to Wall Street investors. Rather than sell pools of NPLs to private-equity firms, hedge funds and other speculators, sell them to qualified nonprofits for the purpose of saving homes from foreclosure and creating affordable housing, the group stated in a resolution co-sponsored by 17 mayors. The mayors point to a joint study issued recently by the Center for Popular Democracy and the ACCE Institute. The study said most NPL pools are auctioned off at steep discounts to hedge funds and private-equity firms. “Although Fannie and Freddie have been unwilling to offer principal reduction to struggling homeowners, they often offer steep discounts when they ...
When Fannie Mae recently announced that its automated underwriting system would be free for all seller-servicers, matching a move made by Freddie Mac, lenders everywhere rejoiced. But not the nation’s mortgage cooperatives, which stand to lose business because the advantage of their “buying power” (with Fannie and Freddie, at least) is now greatly reduced. “Co-ops basically lose their main benefit,” said Mat Ishbia, president and CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage ...
Earlier this year, Pingora Asset Management was out in the market trying to raise another $500 million to buy mortgage servicing rights, but wasn’t having much luck, according to industry sources. But in late June it found something a little more enticing: a buyer to acquire the entire company and its affiliate, Pingora Loan Servicing, without its existing book of receivables. As soon as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other vested parties approve the purchase, the new owner will be ...
Originations of adjustable-rate mortgages in the past seven years have been well below production seen before the financial crisis. While low interest rates have contributed to limiting originations of ARMs, industry analysts suggest that other factors will continue to constrain ARM production even when interest rates rise. An estimated $41.0 billion in ARMs were originated in the first quarter of 2015, down 10.0 percent from the previous quarter and off ...
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