While issuance of non-agency mortgage-backed securities is not particularly attractive for lenders at the moment, banks have been able to turn strong profits by holding nonconforming loans in portfolio. “We’re able to make very good returns” that exceed the profit on selling to the government-sponsored enterprises, said Greg Tallmadge, a vice president at TD Bank. Speaking at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s National Secondary Market Conference this week ...

Although agency mortgage securitization gobbles up a huge share of new home loan originations, jumbo mortgages, home-equity loans and nontraditional mortgage sectors are largely held in retained portfolios that have to be carefully managed, experts say. “Your loan portfolio is incredibly important,” said Jerry Hubbard, president of FTN Financial Capital Assets Corporation during a panel at this week’s Mortgage Bankers Association Secondary Market Conference. “Your consolidated portfolio is three to four times bigger than an investment portfolio. It’s the most important asset on the books...

Dividend payments paid by Freddie Mac to the U.S. Treasury for its continued financial support held down the GSE during the first quarter of 2012 as Freddie would have otherwise posted a profit. Freddie, which posted its first quarter results late this week, actually reported $577 million in net income during the first three months of this year before having to repay $1.8 billion in preferred stock dividends to the government. Under the terms of the GSEs’ purchase agreement, the Treasury is entitled to a dividend of 10 percent per year on a quarterly basis. Freddie’s first quarter dividend payment more than offset the company’s comprehensive income of $1.79 billion, prompting the GSE to seek another $19 million from taxpayers.

The Federal Home Loan Bank Office of Finance announced this week that preliminary combined net income for the FHLBanks jumped 42.3 percent to $733 million in the first quarter of 2012, up from $515 million from the end of the fourth quarter and a whopping 104.7 percent increase from the same period last year. The FHLBank system’s $375 million year-over-year income increase was driven by lower other-than-temporary impairment charges, higher net gains on derivatives, hedged items and financial instruments carried at fair value, and lower assessments, partially offset by lower net interest income, said the Office of Finance.

Nearly all major lenders have reported increased earnings from their mortgage banking activities during the first quarter of 2012, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of earnings reports from 25 companies. As a group, the 25 public companies posted an impressive $7.606 billion in mortgage banking income during the first three months of 2012. That was up 39.0 percent from the $5.471 billion these same firms earned over the final three months of 2011, and it was a huge 177.4 percent increase over the first quarter of last year.The group’s first-quarter mortgage banking...(Includes one data chart)

Mortgage lenders that were less than enthusiastic about the first version of the refinance program for underwater Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac borrowers now see the revised initiative as a significant opportunity for 2012 and beyond. A recent Federal Reserve survey of senior loan officers revealed that 39 percent of large banks have begun actively soliciting Home Affordable Refinance Program business, although participation rates are lower among smaller institutions. Officials from M&T Bank and SunTrust Mortgage said during a recent webinar sponsored by Inside Mortgage Finance Publications that they...

Nearly half of the 56 banks reported that they offer “nontraditional” home mortgages, such as interest-only loans. Virtually all banks say their lending standards for Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac loans, as measured by credit score and loan-to-value ratio, have tightened since 2006. Key factors include difficulty in getting mortgage insurance, repurchase risk and, to a lesser extent, higher servicing costs for delinquent loans. Most banks don’t see new treatment of mortgage servicing rights under Basel III as a major deterrent to staying in the mortgage business. Increasing compliance burden is a bigger...

The four major banks reclassified $6.0 billion in home-equity loans to nonperforming status this month due to guidance from federal regulators. While the holdings have been seen as an impediment to loss mitigation efforts, the banks said the accounting change was essentially cosmetic. Bank of America classified $4.36 billion in HELs as nonperforming as of the end of the first quarter of 2012, up from $2.45 billion at the end of 2011. The increase was due to ...

Invesco liquidated its fund in the Public-Private Investment Program this month, earning a strong 18.2 percent cumulative net internal rate of return on $2.3 billion in capital. “The PPIP program has resuscitated the private-label mortgage-backed securities market and, at least in our case, resulted in a handsome profit to the Treasury Department,” said Wilbur Ross, chairman of the Investment Committee of the fund and chairman and CEO of WL Ross & Co. “We are proud to have participated in it.” Among the seven non-agency public-private investment funds that were participating in the PPIP ... [Includes one data chart]

A data and analytics firm has developed a method to hedge exposure to the underlying risk associated with fluctuating real estate values. The Chicago Board Options Exchange has approved the RPX Futures for its futures exchange. The RPX Composite Index, designed by Radar Logic, calculates the daily value of home prices by determining the price of housing per square foot. “The RPX is a translation of price per square foot gathered from public source records,” explained Michael Feder, CEO of Radar Logic. “We look at all closing transactions with enough information to observe.” The index numbers...