Figuring out the details on how to structure, capitalize and operate new secondary-market facilities for small lenders are key challenges for the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee as it pushes to mark up mortgage reform legislation by the end of this year. This week, lawmakers pushed lender trade groups to come together and find answers. The bipartisan Senate blueprint for secondary mortgage market reform includes several key provisions designed to facilitate small-lender access when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are no longer around, including creation of a new mutual or cooperatively-owned institution through which lenders could issue conventional mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by the government. If a new MBS mutual for small lenders is going to be competitive, it will have to be capitalized...[Includes one data chart]

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have almost "repaid" their debt to the U.S. Treasury. But will it change the debate on the future of the GSEs?

Redwood started acquiring agency mortgages from correspondent lenders in mid-October. The REIT noted that the activity helps create mortgage servicing rights for it to invest in.

Look who has a bigger piece of the mortgage servicing pie: nonbanks that do not fall under the purview of the Fed, FDIC and other regulatory agencies.

bivey@imfpubs.com Walter Investment Management is the latest servicer to transition to a “capital lite” business model, announcing the formation of a REIT to hold mortgage servicing rights. Walter said the new Walter Capital Opportunity unit will acquire certain MSRs while Walter Investment Management subservices the loans. Rival special servicers Nationstar Mortgage and Ocwen Financial have already created or partnered with similar affiliated MSR investors and Two Harbors Investment, a REIT, announced a like-minded agreement with PHH this…

If Freddie Mac "pays back" the U.S. Treasury by year-end will it change the debate on the future of the GSEs?

FHA lenders originated $10.8 billion of new jumbo loans in the first half of 2013, down 2.7 percent from the same period last year.

The REIT is just starting to purchase MSRs. At the end of September it had $15.7 million of mortgage servicing rights on its balance sheet, but that figure should rapidly change in the quarters ahead.

“At the end of the day, we’re still dealing with a one-sided contract with a significant termination option,” said Jonathan Jaffe, an attorney who works on GSE buyback issues.

Rep. Maxine Waters, the ranking Democrat on the panel, is promising that GSE "stakeholders" will have input on her housing reform bill.