Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s new business volume in the first quarter represented a huge increase from the feeble start back in early 2014, with all major markets showing strong gains.A new Inside The GSEs analysis of GSE business lenders in the first quarter shows that California posted one of the biggest gains compared to a year ago. The Golden State produced $44.95 billion of new Fannie/Freddie mortgages, up 69.6 percent from the first quarter of 2014. Over that same period, GSE business grew by 43.3 percent nationally.As usual, California accounted for a substantial Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s new business volume in the first quarter represented a huge increase from the feeble start back in early 2014, with all major markets showing strong gains.A new Inside The GSEs analysis of GSE business lenders in the first quarter shows that California posted one of the biggest gains compared to a year ago. The Golden State produced $44.95 billion of new Fannie/Freddie mortgages, up 69.6 percent from the first quarter of 2014. Over that same period, GSE business grew by 43.3 percent nationally.
The mortgage market faces a big challenge when the Federal Reserve figures out how to unload its massive $1.7 trillion portfolio of agency MBS, but anticipated widening of spreads could at least improve market liquidity. The fixed-income market has seen a sharp decline in trading volume resulting in part from regulatory issues, said Mike Fratantoni, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association, during the group’s annual secondary market conference in New York this week. “Banks have been hoarding liquidity instead of providing it to the market,” he said. Average daily trading volume of MBS has dropped...
Officials involved in the development of the common securitization platform and the single, interchangeable MBS for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have vowed not to publicize any timetable for the project. And despite several attempts to get an answer during a panel session at this week’s secondary market conference sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association, they stuck to their plan. They went out of their way to stress that they haven’t forgotten about potential non-agency users sometime down the road. But that’s...
The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee approved a Republican regulatory relief bill on a strictly partisan vote late this week, with all of the mortgage-finance provisions previously reported intact. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-PA, momentarily offered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a “get out of jail free” card, in the form of an amendment addressing capital requirements for the two government-sponsored enterprises, then withdrew it, presumably for use at a future point in time. “This is...
Nomura Holdings Inc. is mulling an appeal following last week’s court order that it, along with RBS Securities, pay Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a total of $805.1 million to resolve claims arising from the pre-crisis sale of non-agency MBS to the government-sponsored enterprises. Judge Denise Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York rendered the judgment May 11 after a three-week bench trial in which she found Nomura and RBS liable for the claims brought by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The MBS were backed by mortgages with an unpaid principal balance of about $2.05 billion at the time of purchase. Nomura and RBS, which underwrote four of the seven MBS deals at issue, provided...
The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee this week passed the Financial Regulatory Improvement Act of 2015 by a 12 to 10 margin along party lines. The measure, introduced by committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-AL, includes a number of GSE provisions. Title VII of the bill prohibits the use of increases in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guaranty fees to offset outlays or reductions in revenues for “any purpose other than enterprise business functions or housing finance reform as passed by the Congress in the future.” The bill was approved by the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. Another provision would prohibit the U.S. Treasury from selling or...
Lenders are showing “restrained enthusiasm” for the new rep-and-warrant policy changes, according to Jeremy Potter, general counsel and chief compliance officer with Norcom Mortgage. The changes were made to help reduce uncertainty in addressing lenders’ concerns about when they might be asked to repurchase a loan. “On the one hand, you had some restraint where the lender’s reaction was ‘what am I really getting and how is this going to actually materialize?’ But on the other hand, there is the enthusiasm about an example of a regulator, investors and the lender community working together to make a significant advancement to accomplish goals that are good for everyone,” he said.
In tandem with its efforts to build a common securitization platform, the Federal Housing Finance Agency provided an update on its progress in developing a single security for the GSEs last week. “The single-security project is intended to improve the overall liquidity of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities, and lower costs for borrowers and taxpayers,” said the FHFA. The recent update primarily focused on the decisions it made based on the 23 response letters it received and dialogue the agency had with industry leaders after initiating a request for input last year. While representatives from the Federal Home Loan Banks suggested that the FHLBank system become an eligible issuer of single securities, the FHFA declined that proposal.
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