In the refinance market, the share of loans falling into the low-score/high LTV group was 2.57 percent, down from 2.86 percent in the second quarter...
The CFPB’s latest supervisory highlights report provides some Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data collection and reporting reminders for 2017. For starters, beginning with HMDA data collected in 2017 and submitted in 2018, responsibility to receive and process HMDA data will transfer from the Federal Reserve Board to the CFPB. “The HMDA agencies have agreed that a covered institution filing HMDA data collected in or after 2017 with the CFPB will be deemed to have submitted the HMDA data to the appropriate federal agency,” the bureau stated. (The HMDA agencies are the CFPB, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Fed, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.) ...
With Republicans poised to have control of the White House and Congress early next year there were initially concerns that the incoming Trump administration might ponder the unthinkable: killing the government guarantee on mortgage-backed securities and eventually dismantling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. After all, many elected GOP officials blame the two GSEs for the housing crisis (a notion not universally shared, by any means) and would like to eliminate them. The fear was that the vehicle for GSE euthanasia might very well turn out to be a rewrite of Rep. Jeb Hensarling’s (R-TX) “The Protecting American Taxpayers and Homeowners Act” or PATH legislation. Hensarling is also chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac posted combined net income of $5.53 billion for the third quarter of 2016, representing their strongest cycle since the second quarter of 2015. Despite a mandated declining portfolio, the GSEs are beneficiaries of strong guarantee fees, which help drive income.Freddie more than doubled its net profit from the previous quarter to $2.33 billion. This was the company’s best performance since the $4.17 billion earned in the second quarter of 2015. Freddie attributed the gain to robust g-fee income and a steep reduction in hedging losses. Fannie’s net income was up for the quarter to $3.20 billion, also its strongest since earning $4.64 billion back in the second quarter of last year, and up from...
Freddie Mac’s plan to automate some appraisals next year as part of its representation-and-warranty relief is getting criticism from the Appraisal Institute, which said that it threatens risk-management practices. The GSE recently announced that it will broadly offer a no-cost automated appraisal alternative in early 2017 to “significantly” relieve mortgage lenders from buyback risks stemming from defects on appraisals. Currently, Freddie only offers collateral representation- and-warranty relief in select circumstances. But, in a letter penned to Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt, the appraiser group warns, “Freddie Mac’s decision to veer away from fundamental risk management practices appears to harken back to the loan production-driven days in the years leading up to the 2007-2008 financial crisis.”
As home prices have recovered and the end of the year nears, there is talk of whether the conforming loan limits will change for 2017. BlackKnight Financial Services said there is a need for an increase and examined how it could affect mortgage origination volumes. The $417,000 loan limit has remained unchanged for the most part since 2006. The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 established the baseline loan limit at $417,000, and stipulated that after a period of price declines, the baseline loan limit can’t rise again until home prices return to pre-decline levels. Last November, the Federal Housing Finance Agency determined that the maximum loan limits for the GSEs would remain at existing levels throughout...
Promoting alignment between Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the programs offered, versus competition, is a balancing act, according to Bob Ryan, Federal Housing Finance Agency acting deputy director, division of conservatorship. He spoke about the single security during a housing panel sponsored by the Urban Institute and Core Logic last week. Ryan said that it’s important to consider what the implications might be for investors when deciding whether to have the GSEs align or compete in their programs and activities. Freddie is on track to implement the single security in the fourth quarter of 2017, he said. That change will put Freddie’s existing securities on the new platform.
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