New issuance of agency single-family MBS in October was almost even with the previous month, but there was a sharp swing of market share between the two government-sponsored enterprises, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis. Total new MBS issuance by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae came to $113.99 billion last month, a modest 0.5 percent decline from September. But while Fannie production slumped 11.5 percent, Freddie ... [Includes two data charts]
Although it’s still unclear when the Treasury Department will release its blueprint for resolving the epic conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and reforming the housing-finance system, industry officials are sifting through the Trump administration’s tea leaves. One source who claims to be familiar with Treasury’s thinking on the matter said a consensus is developing around a model where the government-sponsored enterprises re-emerge as “utilities” with little or ...
This week, the government-sponsored enterprises reported combined earnings of $7.69 billion in the third quarter of 2017, which was up almost $3 billion from the previous period. As the end of the year approaches, they also continue to reduce their retained investment portfolios as mandated by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac earnings were boosted by a legal settlement with the Royal Bank of Scotland over non-agency MBS ... [Includes one data chart]
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac earnings remained strong in the third quarter as the GSEs posted a combined $7.7 billion in net income. Fannie reported $3.02 billion, a 5.5 percent decline from the prior quarter. Freddie posted $4.67 billion, more than double the $1.66 billion reported in the second quarter. While the combined number is well above the $4.86 billion total booked in the previous quarter, the bulk of it is attributed to a legal settlement windfall with the Royal Bank of Scotland over non-agency mortgage-backed securities sold to the GSEs. Freddie received the lion’s share of the taxable settlement with $4.5 billion and Fannie received $975 million.
In round two of a House Financial Services subcommittee on Housing and Insurance hearing this week, housing finance reform talks shifted from small lender access to getting the GSEs out of conservatorship. During his testimony, Mortgage Bankers Association President and CEO David Stevens called the extended conservatorship, which is fast approaching a decade, economically and politically unsustainable. “The time to act on comprehensive legislative reform is now,” he said. While Stevens acknowledged that the Federal Housing Finance Agency has taken positive steps as conservator, he reiterated his view that only Congress can provide the “legitimacy and public confidence needed for long-term stability in both the primary and secondary markets.”
Mark Calabria, chief economist to Vice President Mike Pence, said the administration is in the early stages of looking at ways to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He also explained why he’s not a fan of the qualified mortgage “patch” during comments this week at a housing finance discussion hosted by the Urban Institute and CoreLogic. He said the Trump administration is committed to not handing Fannie and Freddie over in conservatorship to the next administration and that finding a path forward is just the beginning. “We will do a number of listening sessions to ask questions about what is the best way out of...
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt touted the evolution of the GSEs’ credit-risk transfer programs and said they continue to make progress on exploring new types of ways to transfer risk to the private sector.During remarks at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual conference in Denver last week, Watt said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now transfer a significant amount of credit risk on at least 90 percent of their targeted single-family loans. “The enterprises’ credit-risk transfer programs have leveraged a receptive private sector market and have made an incredible amount of progress in a really short period of time,” he said. Since 2013, they have transferred a portion of credit risk on $1.6 trillion of mortgages.
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