If the Federal Housing Finance Agency implements a principal reduction program that applies to all delinquent mortgages serviced by the government-sponsored enterprises that have negative equity, the Housing Finance Policy Center estimated that 14,563 principal-reduction mods would be completed.
Credit Insurance Risk Transfer 2015-2 covers an $8.1 billion pool of mortgages with a maximum coverage of approximately $202.5 million provided by re-insurers.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw modest gains in issuance of single-family mortgage-backed securities during July, with little sign of any expanded underwriting by sellers The two GSEs generated $83.29 billion of single-family MBS last month, up 7.2 percent from June. Fannie managed only a 1.9 percent gain for the month, while Freddie volume surged 13.8 percent, which gave the company an unusually high 47.0 percent share of the GSE market. A big part of Freddie’s sharp increase in issuance came from the $8.00 billion of seasoned loans the company securitized in July. That was nearly double the volume of Freddie mortgages more than three months old that were securitized in June. Some $1.92 billion of those loans were modified....
Freddie Mac continues to unload seriously delinquent loans from its retained portfolio and unveiled plans late this week to auction off $1.2 billion of non-performing loans. The NPLs are currently serviced by Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC. The planned sale marks Freddie’s sixth NPL auction of the year.The GSE is now marketing the nonperformers in five geographically diversified pools. Bids are due from qualified investors by Sept. 9. The sale is expected to settle in October. The government sponsored mortgage giant said the winning bidder “will be determined on the basis of economics, subject to meeting Freddie Mac’s internal reserve levels.” Credit Suisse Securities, Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, and First Financial Network are the advisors on the deal.
The GSEs’ low-downpayment products designed to loosen credit availability have been slow to pick up steam. Freddie Mac introduced its 97 percent loan-to-value program in March 2015, on the heels of Fannie Mae kicking off its 97 LTV program in December 2014. The CEOs of both companies recently said that so far the volume of low-downpayment purchase loans in GSE business is relatively small. Freddie CEO Donald Layton said during last week’s earnings call, “Actually the numbers have not grown large enough to be reporting level in terms of size.” Fannie echoed that sentiment in its earnings call and said it introduced the 97 LTV product as part of its effort to create programs that make credit available on a broader basis.
Both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae reported second-quarter earnings last week that were significantly higher than the first quarter, thanks primarily to rising interest rates. Freddie posted a net income of $4.17 billion, compared to $524 million in the first quarter. In addition to higher interest rates, the GSE attributed the increased income to a steeper yield curve and $3.1 billion in derivative gains. That gain represents a big comeback from the $2.4 billion in derivative losses in the first quarter. Fannie reported a net income of $4.64 billion, compared to $1.89 billion in the first quarter. Fannie said that number was largely driven by guaranty fee income in the second quarter.
More detailed information sharing is a key component of reforming the housing finance industry, according to Ed DeMarco, the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s former acting director. Speaking at a National Association of Realtors housing forum on Wednesday, DeMarco pointed to the need to work on the standardization of data and said there should be an increased robustness of disclosure to investors if they are to bear mortgage credit risk. “They need to have more information than they have had in the past about the credit characteristics of underlying loans,” he said. DeMarco emphasized that continuing to develop an infrastructure that produces a security that has common data disclosures is important so investors have more confidence in...
The smaller apartment building market has become a part of Freddie’s risk-transfer program as the GSE guaranteed its first multifamily small-balance loan securitization last week. This new credit risk- transfer is composed of multifamily mortgage-backed securities by small-balance loans underwritten by Freddie and issued by a third-party trust. Freddie said the goal is to more effectively provide liquidity and service to markets that are less populated and to smaller apartment communities with between five and 50 units. Approximately 31 percent of U.S. renter households live in apartment properties this size, said the GSE. In these deals, Freddie is selling the first-loss position, which allows it to unload substantially all of the credit risk associated with the small-balance loans.
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