As part of the program, the GSE will enhance loan-level disclosures for the RPLs to provide more transparency.

Roughly $41.42 billion of non-mortgage ABS were issued in the first quarter, up 35.8 percent from the unusually low volume at the end of 2015.

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs signaled this week that Congress is unlikely to take up comprehensive legislation to reform the government-sponsored enterprises before the presidential election this fall. Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-AL, asked the Government Accountability Office to publish a report on a variety of issues involving the GSEs and their potential future structure by Nov. 1. Shelby’s deadline could be ambitious for such a complex issue: a report published last week by the GAO on issues with nonbank mortgage servicers was requested back in October 2014. The timeline suggests...

New reports suggest that government-backed mortgage markets provide better stability for the economy, while investors in non-agency mortgage-backed securities were faulted for abandoning the market after the start of the financial crisis. A paper published last week by economists at the Federal Reserve found that areas with high levels of participation from the government-sponsored enterprises and FHA had relatively lower unemployment rates, higher home sales ...

Closing times are improving but not by leaps and bounds.

The evolutionary flow of the slow-growing agency mortgage servicing market continued in the first quarter of 2016 as many of the big names peeled back and fast-growers kept growing, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. Overall, the agency MSR space expanded by a meager 0.2 percent during the first three months of 2016. Slow growth is typical of heavier refinance periods, and refi business at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae was up a combined 1.9 percent from the fourth quarter. Although purchase mortgages accounted for half of the first-quarter market, the volume of such loans securitized by the three agencies was down 12.6 percent from the previous period. Ginnie continued...[Includes two data tables]

Closing times for purchase mortgages are starting to recover from delays tied to the TRID disclosure rule, according to results from the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s final rule combining disclosure requirements of the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act took effect in early October. Average closing times for various mortgage types increased in the following months, though performance has improved recently, according to HousingPulse. For example, the original closing time for purchase mortgages with a downpayment of at least 20 percent where the loan will be delivered to the government-sponsored enterprises was...

The new principal-reduction option for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loan modifications could end up affecting only about 6,000 delinquent borrowers, according to an Urban Institute analysis. The Federal Housing Finance Agency late last week announced that the government-sponsored enterprises would do principal writedowns for a small population of distressed borrowers. The program is limited to loans that were seriously delinquent as of March 31, had loan amounts of less than $250,000 and unpaid debt, including arrearages, exceeding 115 percent of the current market value of the home. The FHFA estimated...

Nonbanks serviced $2.085 trillion of agency MBS at the end of March, a 2.9 percent increase from the fourth quarter.

Wells Fargo was the top seller to the GSEs in the first quarter with $22.75 billion, followed by Quicken Loans ($11.33 billion) and JPMorgan Chase ($6.87 billion).