Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac risk-sharing transactions have gained steam in the first half of 2015 with the GSEs issuing $7.04 billion through the end of June, a 62.9 percent increase over the first half of last year. Since the credit-risk transfer program launched in July 2013, the two government-sponsored enterprises have sold $19.61 billion of CRT bonds to a growing universe of investors. The CRT bonds transferred a portion of the credit risk on some $704.45 billion of single-family MBS. In addition, Fannie and Freddie have purchased...

Some industry officials, including Marc Savitt, president of the National Association of Independent Housing Professionals, are worried about the methodology of the project...

Serious money continues to plow into non-agency mortgage lending. Meanwhile, Altisource hires Ginnie Mae's man on the hill...

Banks with significant portfolio capacity continue to stock up on mortgages because they offer strong returns and can help efforts to cross-sell other products. While most of the mortgages being added to portfolios are jumbos, in some instances banks are retaining conventional mortgages. JPMorgan Chase reported that it added mortgages with a balance of $19.0 billion to its portfolio holdings during the second quarter of 2015. Marianne Lake, chief financial officer at the bank ...

Industry participants largely support a plan from the Federal Housing Finance Agency for adjustments to the conforming loan limit. The $417,000 loan limit applicable to the government-sponsored enterprises could be increased as soon as January, depending on house-price appreciation trends over the next few months. The FHFA’s proposal said the regulator planned to use the “expanded data” house price index that the agency has published since 2011 to ...

Most mortgage origination indicators pointed higher. Notably, FHA endorsements were up an estimated 61.3 percent from the first quarter…

The trade group also is seeing an increase in mortgage "pull-through" rates.

One competitor to TCB said he is aware of the correspondent launch, but said “So far, they haven’t gotten any traction with our customer base.”

Of the 40, just two firms suffered a sequential volume decline. You’ll have to see IMF to find out which ones.

Republican congressional leadership commemorated the fifth anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Act this week by bashing the massive legislation. But there was not a single mention of making any changes to the mortgage-related provisions in the law. However, Republican leaders of the House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee demonstrated varying degrees of optimism about enacting broader changes to the controversial law. During a Dodd-Frank discussion forum early this week at the American Enterprise Institute, HFSC Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, in response to a question about the political prospects for reform, said...