Ginnie Mae will publish, in advance, the CUSIP and pool information for multiple issuer pools (MIP) on its website for the current month, plus the upcoming three months of issuance. The information will be published by pool term, pool type and security interest rate. This enhancement applies to all securities with an April 1, 2012, issue date and thereafter. According to Ginnie Mae, publishing the CUSIP and pool numbers will improve issuers’ ability to manage their loan pipelines and MIP loan package submissions before the pool is finalized. Both the finalized CUSIP and pool numbers as well as the future CUSIP and pool numbers for MIPs will be ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could be used to help establish a functioning non-agency market, according to a strategic plan released last week by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The conservator of the government-sponsored enterprises said it is working on various initiatives to gradually reduce the GSEs’ roles in housing finance. “The strategic goals and performance objectives set forth here provide an outline for the next chapter of the story, one that focuses in earnest on building a secondary mortgage market infrastructure that will live beyond the enterprises,” said Edward DeMarco, acting director of the FHFA, in testimony this week before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs ...

Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan told lawmakers this week that the Obama administration was “encouraged” by the early activity in the revamped Home Affordable Refinance Program. And he was bullish on the prospects of HARP 2.0 picking up more volume as the program becomes fully operational by the end of this month. But available data and a new analysis by Inside MBS & ABS suggest that HARP 2.0 is not likely to generate much, if any, more volume over the next two years than HARP 1.0 did over the past three years. In fact, that was the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s...

Commercial banks increased their stake in the residential MBS market to a record $1.360 trillion as of the end of 2011, with a lot of the growth coming in Ginnie Mae MBS. Bank MBS holdings rose 2.4 percent from the third to the fourth quarter as seven of the 10 largest bank MBS investors reported significant increases. Compared to the end of 2010, bank MBS holdings were up 10.3 percent over a period in which the outstanding supply of single-family MBS continued to decline. Commercial banks held a record 20.9 percent of outstanding residential MBS at the end of last year, based...(Includes two data charts)

Despite historically low mortgage rates, tough underwriting standards and mortgage hassles are continuing to drive homebuyers towards all cash transactions in 2012. According to new numbers released this week from the Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey, cash transactions accounted for a record-high 34.1 percent of home purchases tracked in January. That was up from 29.4 percent a year ago and just 22.8 percent in January of 2010, based on a three-month moving average. Importantly, the large share of home purchases funded with cash instead of mortgages highlights a serious problem...

There was agreement this week during a hearing of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee that recent efforts to expand the government’s refinance program are slowly having the desired effect, but the direction of refi policy to come remains an open dispute among officials. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said the Obama administration is “encouraged thus far” by the 50,000 homeowners who have already refinanced their mortgages under HARP 2.0, the revamped Home Affordable Refinance Program. “These changes have met with a very positive response from homeowners....

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buyback demands on Countrywide mortgages were more than double the amount sought on any other lender, but the key reason is that Countrywide securitized a lot more loans than anyone else from 2006 through 2008. A new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of representation and warranties disclosures made by the two government-sponsored enterprises shows that some $16.22 billion of Countrywide mortgages were subject to buyback demands, both before and after the company was acquired by Bank of America in 2008. In a distant second place was Wells Fargo...(Includes one data chart)

Bank of America had already been dialing back its mortgage deliveries to Fannie Mae, along with declining overall production volume, before the company unexpectedly announced last week it has stopped sales to the government-sponsored enterprise altogether. But according to reports, a top Fannie official said the GSE acted first to end the relationship in frustrations with the bank’s delays in resolving repurchase issues. BofA said disputes over repurchases were one factor leading the bank to stop selling most single-family mortgages to Fannie, although the company also cited an inability to renegotiate...

A Federal Home Loan Bank may base its calculation of tangible capital for an insurance company member on financial statements prepared using statutory accounting principles for purposes of applying regulatory limits to members’ access to advances, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The FHFA’s regulatory interpretation, issued earlier this month, would permit the use of SAP-based financial statements under certain conditions if the Bank’s insurance company member does not otherwise prepare financial statements based on generally accepted accounting principles.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have made far fewer repurchase demands on loans sold to the GSEs over the past three years, but their regulator says the enterprises will continue to push lenders to buy back defective loans. A new Inside the GSEs analysis of repurchase activity by the GSEs reveals that the share of loans subject to buyback demands slowed to a trickle in 2009, when just 0.25 percent of mortgages purchased or securitized by Fannie and Freddie were subject to such requests.