Compared to a year ago, bank mortgage servicing for others – nearly all of which is connected to MBS – was down 6.1 percent.

FCI’s clients include private money lenders, hedge funds, investment companies and others.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issued $74.10 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities during May, down 8.0 percent from April, a new Inside the GSEs analysis reveals. The purchase-mortgage market picked up some last month, but not enough to offset a sharp 15.7 percent drop in the volume of refinance loans securitized by the GSEs. Purchase-mortgage business was up 7.2 percent from April and reached a combined $28.25 billion – the highest monthly volume since the end of last year’s homebuying season in October. For the first five months of 2015, purchase-mortgage activity totaled $105.15 billion, up 19.0 percent from the same period last year. Most of the big gain in overall GSE business has come from refinancing, which is up 94.4 percent on a...(charts included)

In a move to level the playing field and increase liquidity in the market, Freddie Mac has done away with the $20 fee to use Loan Prospector, the oldest of its suite of lender tools, effective this week. In a letter that went out to Freddie customers last month, the GSE noted it was “eliminating financial barriers to our tools.” Christina Boyle, Freddie’s senior vice president of single-family sales, said since the LP underwriting tool was introduced in 1997 the GSEs have added additional tools, especially within the last couple of years, and plan to introduce more in the future. “The only tool that had a cost associated with it was Loan Prospector and it was sort of a...

Though down from April, it was still significantly higher than at any time in 2014, when production averaged just $77.46 billion per month.

The loan limit more than doubled for the Mortgage Partnership Finance program through which members of certain Federal Home Loan Banks can deliver jumbos to Redwood Trust. Officials at both the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago and Redwood are optimistic about the MPF Direct product, though it’s unclear how much volume the new offering will generate. Beginning in the third quarter, the loan limit for MPF Direct will increase from $729,750 to $1.5 million. Previously, the MPF Direct product targeted loans with balances between $625,500, which is the current conforming loan limit for certain high-cost areas, and $729,750, which was the high-cost loan limit during a time when the FHLBank of Chicago was working to launch MPF Direct. Outside of MPF Direct, Redwood purchases...

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro and Rep. Ed Royce, R-CA, agree that housing reform needs to happen, but while Royce emphasized the need to get private capital back in the system, Castro focused on the issue of credit access. Royce and Castro were speakers during a June 3 housing finance forum in Washington sponsored by the National Journal. Castro said part of the challenge for Democrats and Republicans in both Houses is the issue of access to credit. “How do you ensure that in the system there’s a good amount of access of credit to people of moderate means just like people of strong means,” said Castro.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines and Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle completed their merger June 1, the first time in 80 years that two regional banks have combined forces. The combined banks will operate under the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines name and as a result of the voluntary merger, it will become the largest bank in the FHLB system geographically and membership wise, serving close to 1,500 institutions in 13 states and three U.S. Pacific territories. While the FHLB Des Moines had 1,156 members and $95.5 billion in assets as of Dec. 31, 2014, the FHLB Seattle had 316 members and had $35.1 billion in assets as of the end of 2014.

For the first time, individual shareholders have brought a suit against the Federal Housing Finance Agency alleging that the Treasury profit sweep was illegal and accused the agency of violating the Housing and Economic Recovery Act. The May lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern Iowa by three individual shareholders who owned stock in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac prior to the Third Amendment.Thomas Saxton owns shares in the Z series of Freddie preferred stock and he owns shares of Freddie common stock with Ida Saxton.The pair own common stock both jointly and individually and acquired their shares in 2008. The third plaintiff is Bradely Payner, who owns shares of Fannie common stock.

After a pilot jumbo mortgage loan program between the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago and Redwood Trust kicked off this quarter and expanded into a full roll-out beginning June 1, it was announced this week that the loan limit will just about double. The new single-family loan limit for the Mortgage Partnership Finance Direct program will increase from the current $729,750 to $1.5 million in the third quarter. The MPF Direct loan limit was raised primarily to help members that operate in urban or other areas where home prices are higher than the national average, said John Stocchetti, an executive vice president at the FHLB Chicago and group head of the MPF program.