The largest Fannie/Freddie servicers are still Wells Fargo, JPMorgan and Bank of America, but all three continue to shrink their exposure to GSE product...
It’s Monday and Richard Cordray is still the director of the CFPB, despite a whirlwind of sometimes conflicting news reports and rumors. Into last week, one continuing narrative (or trial balloon, perhaps) was that President Trump was on the verge of sacking Cordray “any day now.” But in the last few days, the latest line is that the Trump administration won’t fire Cordray until the Senate confirms Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-AL, to be the next attorney general of the United States. The reason: the legal battle that would (presumably) ensue if he is fired will require a permanent AG to be in place and not just an acting top cop. Then again, the Trump administration seems to like to shoot ...
OCC Revises CRA Asset Thresholds for Small and Intermediate Small Banks and Savings Associations. Earlier this month, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency revised the asset-size threshold amounts used to define “small bank,” “small savings association,” “intermediate small bank,” and “intermediate small savings association” under the Community Reinvestment Act. ... OCC Adjusts Civil Money Penalties for Inflation. Late last week, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced it was adjusting the maximum amount of each civil money penalty within its jurisdiction. ...
Keefe Bruyette & Woods questioned what would happen if the GSEs were dismantled in its recent financial podcast. Bose George, analyst with KBW, said, given the increase in guaranty fees, it’s clear that at least for higher quality loans, the private sector is ready to price just as competitively. “But we see two risks if the GSEs go away,” he said. George noted that the five trillion dollars worth of GSE MBS guarantees, which currently have no capital behind them, will need capital if that moves over to the banking system. And he said it’s safe to assume that will translate into higher mortgage rates.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac single-family mortgage servicing grew at a relatively stable pace during the fourth quarter of 2016, but the nonbank share was up significantly. A new Inside The GSEs analysis and ranking shows that the two guaranteed $4.496 trillion of single-family mortgage-backed securities outstanding at the end of December. That was up 1.0 percent from the third quarter and 0.8 percent higher than at the end of 2015. But nonbanks held the mortgage-servicing rights on some $1.476 trillion of GSE single-family MBS, up 4.7 percent from the end of the third quarter. Their GSE servicing grew a whopping 18.5 percent during 2016, while banks and other depositories managed a small 0.6 percent increase.
Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin’s recent comments that he’s not a fan of recapitalizing and releasing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and wants to find a “bipartisan solution” to GSE reform has caused speculation about what reform will look like under the Trump administration.The comments, made during his Senate confirmation hearing last week, presented a softer take on housing reform than his earlier comments suggested. Shortly after being ...
Fannie Mae is testing the market for single-family rental homes by backing a large institutional investor for the first time. In an agreement to fund up to $1 billion of collateral owned by Invitation Homes, Fannie, along with Wells Fargo Bank, issued a commitment letter to the Dallas-based company. Invitation, a subsidiary of Blackstone, is the largest single-family rental operation, with a portfolio of close to 50,000 homes that it acquired from foreclosure auctions to fix up and rent.The commitment states that the GSE will be involved in a “securitization transaction” with the SFR operator “to fund a new 10-year fixed rate mortgage loan in a...