Appraisals aren’t causing significant closing problems for purchase-mortgage lending, although there are issues as home prices increase, according to responses to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. “Appraisals are mostly in line with contract prices,” said Tom Popik, research director for Campbell Surveys. “However, appraisals for FHA mortgages and VA mortgages more often miss the contract price than appraisals for conventional mortgages.” Appraised home prices have tended...
John Shrewsberry, a senior vice president at Wells Fargo, said the bank has focused on adding jumbo mortgages to its portfolio. “They are very safe loans,” he said. “I think we’ve got four basis points of loss coming through that portfolio.”
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are wading into the testing phase for the Single Security initiative for to-be-announced MBS, and they agreed on common names for the new product. The first-level securities – the equivalent of Fannie’s MBS and Freddie’s participation certificates – will be called “Uniform MBS.” The second-level deals – replacing Fannie’s Megas and Freddie’s Giants – will be known as “Supers.” Fannie has already registered the trademarks for these names. It appears that domain names for both, at least the .com variety, have been grabbed up. Both government-sponsored enterprises continue to prepare for conversion, and Common Securitization Solutions continues to release software for system-to-system testing, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s 2015 Scorecard Progress Report released late last week. These ...
Real estate investment trusts that focus on residential MBS continued to pare their investments in the fourth quarter, a trend that may last through the remainder of the year. Interest rate volatility and continued reports of “illiquidity” in the MBS market remain key factors plaguing the sector. Still, prices for agency product remain strong and, as Inside MBS & ABS noted recently, commercial banks and thrifts continue to add to their holdings, which reached a record $1.643 trillion at yearend 2015. The 16 public mortgage REITs tracked by this publication held $233.17 billion of MBS at year-end, 92.4 percent of which included Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae product. The non-agency market continues to shrink as legacy nonprime securities ...
After much discussion over the past two years, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority put out a request for comment last week regarding its proposed amendments to shorten the settlement cycle for U.S. secondary market transactions from three business days to two business days by late 2017. Industry representatives said a shorter, two-day settlement timeframe will promote financial stability and significantly mitigate risks to the financial system. FINRA seeks specific input regarding the direct or indirect impacts that the change may have on investors. The last time the settlement cycle was shortened was in 1995, when it went from five business days after the trade date to the current three days. Since then, the Securities and Exchange Commission and financial services ...
Competition from banks for conforming mortgages prompted Redwood Trust to discontinue its aggregation of mortgages for sale to the government-sponsored enterprises, according to officials at the real estate investment trust. “The business assumption that has changed is that we no longer believe that our conduit can generate sufficient conforming loan sale margins, primarily due to the unrelenting competitive pricing pressure from some major banks,” Redwood said in a document ...
With only a few isolated exceptions, VA and FHA lending was up sharply across the country last year, outstripping the private mortgage insurance business in nearly every state of the U.S., according to a new analysis by Inside FHA/VA Lending. Overall, FHA single-family mortgages securitized by Ginnie Mae increased 60.5 percent from 2014 and VA production was up 39.4 percent. Meanwhile, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac posted a more subdued 26.2 percent increase in privately-insured loan volume. California remained the biggest mortgage market for the FHA, VA and private MIs, as well as uninsured mortgages. The FHA clearly won the mortgage insurance battle, boosting its share of insured loans in the Golden State from 41.1 percent in 2014 to 49.2 percent last year thanks to a whopping 89.8 percent jump in business. California had one of the highest concentrations of ... [ 3 charts ]
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