HFSC Continues to Seek Five-Member Commission for FHFA. During a full committee markup this week, the House Financial Services Committee voted to convert regulatory agencies currently headed by single directors, such as the Federal Housing Finance Agency, along with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, into bipartisan, five-member commissions. The HFSC voted to make the Treasury’s one-time GSE privatization study become an annual report/testimony. FHFA Publishes Open Government Plan 2016. The Federal Housing Finance Agency published a document this week highlighting some of the ways it plans to advance the principles of “transparency, participation and collaboration” through open communication and public engagement.

Meanwhile, as home equity originations improve, the outstanding supply of home-equity debt continues to decline.

The third quarter has yet to end and the big question for the industry boils down to this: Will 3Q be better than 2Q?

Among other things, Fannie found that for 3Q16, more lenders expect to sell their mortgages to the GSEs rather than keeping them in portfolio.

Retail lending through brick-and-mortar branches and consumer-direct programs was the biggest production channel in conventional mortgage lending but had a somewhat smaller share in government-insured lending, according to an exclusive analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance. Retail production played a dominant role in the jumbo market, where it accounted for 79.3 percent of originations over the 18-month period ending in June 2016. Correspondent production played a meaningful role, accounting for 16.1 percent of jumbo originations, but brokers (4.6 percent) had a relatively thin share of the jumbo market. Brokers’ strength was...[Includes one data table]

Originations of mortgages to first-time homebuyers in recent years have performed better than other purchase mortgages securitized by the government-sponsored enterprises, according to an analysis by Moody’s Investors Service. The stronger performance of first-time homebuyers occurred even as purchase mortgages for repeat buyers tend to have stronger borrower characteristics. The rating service suggested that tighter underwriting coupled with borrower education and counseling have improved the performance of GSE first-time homebuyer mortgages. Moody’s said...

There is no clear explanation as to why VA rates are lower than the competition, but some industry participants, including Tom Piercy of Incenter Mortgage Advisors, speculate prepayments might be the reason.

Despite shying away from FHA production, Wells Fargo remained a top Ginnie issuer, closing August with $3.83 billion and ranking third overall.

The GSE conundrum in perspective: "The mortgage finance system is working so consumers are somnambulant; media occasionally write about it, but don’t get fired up; courts don’t seem to be upset over unprecedented Treasury bullying and revenue abuse..."

Meanwhile, while the jumbo securitization rate during the quarter was a paltry 0.8 percent…