A recent audit showed that the Federal Housing Finance Agency needs to do a better job at managing nonbank risks such as mortgage servicing transfers. In response, the FHFA said it will finalize a risk-based proposal to examine how well the GSEs manage that and other risks by the end of this month. The FHFA’s Inspector General said that the agency has not made sure that both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are tackling potential risks. The IG noted that out of three advisory bulletins issued that addressed nonbank servicer risk, one of the GSEs only complied with one of the bulletins.The heavily redacted report doesn’t mention which GSE failed to comply with the bulletins, but a...
Moody’s says HAMP Replacement Program Credit Neutral for CRTs. The GSEs’ new Flex Modification foreclosure prevention program that will replace the expired Home Affordable Modification Program has a neutral credit impact on GSE risk-risk transfer deals. Moody’s said that the volume of modifications and the re-default performance under the Flex program will be comparable to modification levels and performance under the current programs. The firm also noted that the new program will not result in increased modification volume. Servicers have until Oct. 1, 2017, to implement the new program.Freddie’s Recent ACIS Transaction. Last week, Freddie Mac announced its last Agency Credit Insurance Structure of 2016 in the form of a $285 million offering. The GSE said it...
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last year issued a combined $12.93 billion of debt notes that pay investors based on the performance of reference pools, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis of their credit-risk transfer programs. That was up just 2.8 percent from the 2015 volume of new issuance in Fannie’s Connecticut Avenue Securities program and Freddie’s Structured Agency Credit Risk program. It brought total issuance in the two platforms, which started issuance in late 2013, to $38.08 billion. Interestingly, total new single-family MBS production by the two government-sponsored enterprises was...[Includes one data table]
The 25 basis-point mortgage insurance premium cut announced this week by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s departing leadership could switch $50 billion of issuance from Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac business to FHA as well as cause premium Ginnie Mae MBS to prepay faster, according to market analysts. Absent any adversarial pricing by private mortgage insurers, a guaranty fee adjustment by the Federal Housing Finance Agency or a reversal by the Trump administration, analysts with Bank of America Merrill Lynch see up to 12 percent of purchase and 2 percent of refis shifting to FHA. On June 9, HUD Secretary Julian Castro announced...
Change in the political balance in Washington that put the GOP in control of both houses of Congress and the executive branch has fueled speculation that something will finally be done to resolve the conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As in the past, there is no shortage of competing proposals. At an Urban Institute seminar this week, Rick Lazio, former Republican congressman from New York, said...
Capital requirements regarding bank holdings of non-agency MBS increased significantly after federal regulators implemented Basel III reforms in 2014. And while banks have largely been reluctant to re-enter the market for non-agency MBS issuance, a recent report by the Government Accountability Office suggests that the impact of bank involvement in the non-agency MBS market is unclear. The GAO was asked to explain how capital requirements for a mortgage depend on how the loan is financed and how the requirements have changed since the financial crisis. The report was requested by Sen. Richard Shelby, R-AL, who until recently was the chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. The GAO noted...
Heavy refinance activity at the end of the year lifted single-family business at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to a three-year high in 2016, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis and ranking. The two firms guaranteed $973.72 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities during 2016, up 18.1 percent from the previous year. That included a 5.7 percent increase from the third to the fourth quarter that was fueled by a 24.5 percent jump in refi loans delivered into new GSE MBS. While both companies saw solid gains from 2015 activity, Fannie’s 23.3 percent increase was more than double the 11.0 percent rise in Freddie volume. [includes two charts]
As Fannie Mae prepares to vacate its iconic headquarters with a move to downtown Washington in 2018, the buyers of the colonial-style building are mulling over plans on what to do with the four-story, close to 250,000 square-foot property. Roadside Development, in a partnership with Sekisui House, bought the building situated on about 10 acres last month.Before making plans on what to do with the property, Roadside is seeking public input in the form of community meetings and online outreach. Roadside founding Principal Richard Lake said the firm wants to sit with the community and spend time with them to get ideas, just as they did in other nearby development projects.
The GSE figures suggest that private MIs saw a measurable drop in new insurance written in the final three months of 2016, but ended the year with a significant increase in volume compared to 2015.
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