FCI Lender Services, the nation’s largest private-money servicer, is sticking its toe in the lending market by teaming up with Blackrock Mortgage Investment to extend credit to investors in single-family rental properties. This month, the Anaheim, CA-based FCI rolled out two SFR products and one tied to investors looking to buy nonperforming mortgages. According to a rate sheet provided to Inside Mortgage Trends, one of the SFR products requires...
The top five servicers still accounted for over half (53.3 percent) of the total for the top 50 servicers, but that was down from 57.0 percent a year ago.
The company, whose share price was hammered this past summer after disappointing 2Q results, promised investors that it will be break even in 2016 or “modestly profitable.”
Since the federal takeover, the Treasury Department has provided $116.1 billion in assistance to Fannie with the GSE returning (once the 3Q dividend is paid) $144.8 billion...
Freddie Mac’s $475 million net loss in the third quarter of 2015 – its first in four years – underscores the need to rebuild capital reserves at the two government-sponsored enterprises and to plan for their emergence from conservatorship, according to some mortgage groups and housing advocates. In a joint letter, the Community Home Lenders Association and the Community Mortgage Lenders of America, both of which represent small independent mortgage lenders, urged President Obama to support recommended revisions to a sweep agreement that prohibits the GSEs from rebuilding capital and to free them from conservatorship. Freddie’s third-quarter loss was...
The baseline $417,000 conforming loan limit is almost certain to remain unchanged in 2016, according to an Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of key house-price trends. The Federal Housing Finance Agency recently confirmed that it will use the seasonally-adjusted “expanded data” house-price index as the yardstick for determining whether increases should be made to the $417,000 baseline, which has been in place for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac business since 2006. As of the second quarter of 2015, the most recent data available, the HPI reading was...
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reported a combined $1.485 billion in net income for the third quarter of 2015, a hefty 83.1 percent decline from the previous period. While Fannie reported its 15th consecutive profitable quarter ($1.96 billion in net income), Freddie posted its first loss ($475 million) in four years. Don Layton, Freddie’s CEO, said that earnings volatility “stems from our usage of derivatives to hedge interest rate risks and accounting mismatches associated with the activity. This quarter showed a continuation of that volatility as the accounting mismatch produced a negative $1.5 billion [generally accepted accounting principles] earnings, which was enough to tip us into the comprehensive income loss of about $500 million for the quarter. “Utilizing a derivatives hedging strategy can result...