Bureau Mulling Possible Changes to HMDA Resubmission Guidelines. It’s been roughly one year since the CFPB issued a request for information regarding Home Mortgage Disclosure Act resubmission guidelines, and the bureau has yet to decide which way to proceed. The agency received 31 comments in response to the RFI, which was published Jan. 12, 2016, in the Federal Register. Commenters included HMDA reporters, industry trade groups, and consumer groups.... Revisions to Interagency Compliance Rating System Still Pending. The CFPB and the other members of the FFIEC continue to review public comments on their April 29, 2016, proposal to revise the existing Uniform Interagency Consumer Compliance Rating System to reflect regulatory, supervisory, technological, and market changes since the system was established....

Empirical evidence of the mortgage market’s recovery is still piling up, with the latest quarterly consumer complaint data from the CFPB showing that gripes about home loans fell in most categories tracked, both on a quarterly basis and year over year, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside the CFPB. Consumer criticisms in the fourth quarter fell a solid 15.0 percent from the period ending Sept. 30, 2016. Finger pointing by borrowers fell on a YOY basis as well, but by a smaller 4.5 percent, the data show.With fewer and fewer borrowers underwater or in foreclosure these days, it should be no surprise that complaints about loan modification are down the most [With three exclusive data charts] ...

United Shore Financial Services was the top seller of broker loans by a wide margin, with $5.83 billion in fourth-quarter activity, more than twice its nearest competitor…

Correspondent-originated mortgages accounted for 30.7 percent of home loans delivered into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities during the fourth quarter of 2016, according to a new analysis from Inside Mortgage Trends. Lenders sold $90.96 billion of correspondent-originated loans to the two government-sponsored enterprises, an 11.6 percent increase over the third quarter. The volume of retail originations rose 3.6 percent in the fourth quarter ... [Includes two data charts]

Although the question of when the conservatorship status of the GSEs will be resolved is still up in the air, a new administration has many speculating that change is on the horizon for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The November election gave Republicans both houses of Congress and the executive branch. This seemed to lend itself to more talks on when and how to reform the GSEs as they approach close to a decade in conservatorship. But, while the sentiment to do something is apparent, agreeing on the best path forward is a different story. And, as in the past, there is no shortage of competing thought processes and proposals.

With increased talk of privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Investors Unite wants reassurance that shareholders will be treated fairly. The GSE shareholders rights trade group said, “Now everybody is talking about ending the conservatorship,” in a recent blog posting. While that may be an exaggeration, since the presidential election there has been a renewed interest in bringing the GSEs out of its eight-plus years conservatorship, where they’ve been since September 2008. Recent talks began with and snowballed after Treasury-secretary designee Steve Mnuchin said that getting the GSEs out of government control would be a top priority for the new presidential administration. And Mnuchin said that he plans to do this “reasonably fast.”

Fannie Mae invited several real estate investors to its first quarterly meeting of the year this month to discuss single-family rental loans. Tom Wilson of Wilson Investment Properties and Bruce Norris of the Norris Group attended and spoke from the investor’s perspective on single-family rental loans, which have become harder to obtain since the housing downturn. Wilson said that as a result it’s been more difficult for investors and landlords to be “economically motivated” to provide sufficient housing. Discussions at the meeting with the two California-based real estate investors centered on Fannie’s limit on the number of loans to a...

Fannie Mae is eliminating the mortgage-backed securities call-in requirement in preparation for the upcoming integration with the Common Securitization Platform. The change is part of several modifications to the GSE’s investor reporting requirements that servicers must implement by Feb. 1 when reporting borrower activity. The GSE referred to the MBS call-in as a “non-industry standard and redundant practice” that requires servicers to report their monthly pool balances for MBS swaps and loan activity data reports. In addition to preparing servicers for when Fannie integrates with the CSP, the change will help simplify policies and procedures. “Fannie Mae can rely on existing loan level data from servicers to drive security balance processing. Servicers will no longer have...

The Federal Home Loan Banks Office of Finance announced changes this week to some of their debt programs and said they will allow more securities dealers to participate in their diversity and inclusion program. The FHLBank is planning to incorporate other aspects of diversity, beyond what’s already been established, in order to help expand the scope of dealers eligible to participate in the program. The first change went into effect Jan. 10 when the minimum new issue par amount for negotiated callable bonds decreased. That number will drop from $15 million to $10 million when diversity and inclusion dealers participate in the underwriting group.

As the guard prepares to change in a week, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said in an exit memo released last week that only legislation can comprehensively address “the ongoing shortcomings of the housing finance system.” In the memo, Lew documents the Treasury’s progress over the last eight years and outlines his goals for the future of the department. He said that fixing the housing finance system remains the major unfinished piece of work of post-financial crisis reform. While he said the housing market has improved, Lew acknowledged that many homeowners and neighborhoods continue to struggle. “A starting point for such legislation should be the principles President Obama laid out in 2013, which stressed a clearly-defined role for the...