The Federal Housing Finance Agency is expected to unveil its final rules on Private Mortgage Insurer Eligibility Requirements (PMIERs) early next week, according to industry officials who claim to have knowledge of the regulator’s thinking. After the MI industry views the regulations, the rest of the world likely will see them a week later. It’s anticipated that the FHFA will not make any surprising changes to what was proposed earlier in the year, though a new report from Compass Point Trading & Research predicts that the final regulatory language will be “modestly softened.” The research firm adds, “Our view remains that the forthcoming FHFA release will be positive for the PMI industry,” noting that the finalization will remove a “meaningful policy overhang” from the sector.

While creating the largest Federal Home Loan Bank in the system, both geographically and membership wise, about 75 percent of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle workforce will be laid off due to a merger with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines. The merger, approved in December by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, officially goes into effect in June, trimming the Seattle bank’s workforce to just 35 employees in the regional office. About 109 employees will be laid off before 2015 ends. Both banks unanimously approved the merger and said it will result in a cooperative that is stronger than either bank on an individual basis. Once combined, the bank will be headquartered in Des Moines.

The Federal Home Loan Bank Topeka now lets members invest in residential whole loan mortgages originated under the Mortgage Partnership Finance Program as an added opportunity and as a risk-sharing measure. This is the first time that an FHLBank has opened its shared credit risk program to members. Dan Hess, chief business officer and senior vice president of FHLBank Topeka, told Inside The GSEs that the bank has had a lot of success with the MPF program since it began 15 years ago and wanted to extend the opportunity to its members. “It’s been a high quality asset for us with a low level of defaults throughout the financial crisis,” he said.

Conservatorship has left Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a state of flux, according to former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman William Isaac, who recently criticized the federal government’s verdict to let the Treasury Department take the bulk of the GSEs profits. As anxiety continues to grow about the sustainable profitability of Fannie and Freddie, Isaac said there doesn’t appear to be light at the end of the tunnel. “We need to bring some fresh thought to this issue,” he said during a teleconference sponsored by Investors Unite last week. Although he said there has been very little movement on the issue within the past year. Isaacs said until a resolution is reached, “it’s very important that the government treat...

Freddie Pre-markets STACR Offering. Freddie Mac announced on April 6 a plan to pre-market its first actual loss STACR offering, STACR 2015-DNA1, starting April 13, subject to market conditions. Instead of allocating losses to the debt note based on a fixed severity approach, losses will allocated based on the actual losses realized on the related reference obligations. One Analysis of the Upcoming G-Fee and LLPA Announcement. In anticipation of the announcement surrounding guaranty fees and loan level price adjustment requirements, FBR Capital Markets released a couple of observations on April 8 regarding the possible income and impact on the market. “We still believe G-fees and LLPAs will be cut for a significant percentage of mortgage production,” FBR analysts said. However...

Mortgage brokers played an increasingly important role in the conventional conforming market during the first quarter of 2015, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Mortgage brokers were responsible for $23.8 billion of single-family mortgages securitized by the two government-sponsored enterprises during the first three months of this year. That was up 16.0 percent ... [Includes two data charts]

Repurchase requests on new production are few and far between, according to the government-sponsored enterprises. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both recently issued reviews of their quality control processes, noting that lenders have plenty of tools to help ensure loan quality and avoid buybacks. Carlos Perez, a senior vice president and chief credit officer for single-family business at Fannie, said that as of the end of 2014, 0.33 percent of the single-family ...

Broker originations delivered to the GSEs increased by 16.0 percent in the first quarter of 2015 compared with the previous quarter, the biggest gain among the three production channels.

The GSEs aren’t completely committed to adopting new credit scoring models just yet, but it is on their radar. When asked about the possibility of alternative credit scoring, spokesmen for both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pointed to the 2015 Conservatorship Scorecard which stated that they will be assessing the feasibility of alternate credit score models and credit history in loan-decision models. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro, who spoke at a credit access symposium in Washington last week, said that the FHA is exploring new ways to determine the creditworthiness of consumers to increase access to mortgage lending. Housing industry leaders in attendance said Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other mortgage lenders could increase access....

Although the Federal Housing Finance Agency has upped its efforts to promote diversity and inclusion in the workforce in 2014, the agency said challenges remain as some racial and ethnic groups are still underrepresented, according to a March 31 report to Congress by FHFA’s Office of Minority and Women Inclusion. Because of the Dodd-Frank Act requirements, there has been considerable increases in racial, ethnic and gender diversity of FHFA’s executive leadership team since the agency first began reporting to Congress in 2011. Even though the number of FHFA executives has declined by 13.5 percent in the past three years, minorities comprised 23.5 percent, compared to 10.1 percent in 2011, and women comprised 33.3 percent, compared to 25.4 percent.