Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both announced new re-performing loan sale transactions this month as the two government-sponsored enterprises look for ways to shed illiquid assets. Fannie began marketing its first re-performing loan sale back in November to help reduce its balance sheet. The program continues to gain more traction with each sale. That first sale totaled $789.2 million in unpaid principal balance. Fannie has since announced...

Insurance policies are the second-largest form of the government-sponsored enterprises’ credit-risk transfer but Fannie Mae’s Credit Insurance Risk Transfer (CIRT) program and Freddie Mac’s Agency Credit Insurance Structure (ACIS) have a few stark differences. One of the primary differences in the two is that Freddie has retained large portions of the tranches from its popular Structured Avenue Credit Risk deals (STACR), and used the ACIS program as a way to transfer some of the remaining risk, up to the 5 percent retention limit, note analysts at Wells Fargo Securities in a recent report. With ACIS coverage tied to companion STACR deals, it’s...

JPMorgan Chase is preparing to issue a $1.02 billion non-agency mortgage-backed security with jumbo mortgages along with loans eligible for sale to the government-sponsored enterprises. JPMorgan Mortgage Trust 2017-2 received preliminary AAA ratings last week from Kroll Bond Rating Agency and Moody’s Investors Service. The deal will be the second-largest non-agency MBS backed by post-crisis originations, topped only by the $1.03 billion security Chase issued in ...

The retail segment saw the biggest decline, dropping 34.6 percent to an estimated $221.0 billion.

Fannie Mae recently completed its first single-family rental securitization deal with a large institutional investor and the Urban Institute said demand for SFR financing is likely to grow. The $1 billion deal with Invitation Homes was announced in January as a pilot program. The Dallas-based company is the largest single-family rental operator in the U.S. and has a portfolio of about 50,000 homes that it acquires from foreclosures. As investors increasingly rely on leverage to earn an acceptable rate of return, these kinds of transactions are expected...

The Federal Home Loan Banks have become too reliant on short-term funding of longer-term assets, according to Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt. Speaking at the FHLBank Annual Director’s Conference this week, Watt reiterated his concern from a year earlier that over time a heavy reliance on short-term funding can strain the system’s capacity to issue short-term debt at attractive spreads. He acknowledged...

In April, Wells Fargo was the top seller of mortgages to Fannie and Freddie with $9.02 billion, followed by Quicken Loans and JPMorgan Chase…

MBA's Stevens once again slams those in favor of a GSE “recap and release” plan, saying this group consists “primarily [of] stock speculators who are most concerned about personal profits” rather than the future of the U.S. housing system.”

Entering a future downturn with “extensive short-funded, long-asset positions would be imprudent,” said FHFA Director Mel Watt.

In the new Trump budget, the White House takes an ax to the USDA’s rural single-family housing direct loan program.