A number of Republicans raised concerns last week about the exemption from qualified mortgage standards currently provided to mortgages eligible for sale to the government-sponsored enterprises. Loans must meet a number of standards to receive QM protections, including having a debt-to-income ratio below 43 percent. However, under the ability-to-repay rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that took effect in 2014, mortgages eligible for sale to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can receive QM status even if they have DTI ratios above 43 percent. The exemption is known as the “GSE patch.”
Ginnie Mae issuers rode a wave of purchase-mortgage lending to deliver $120.46 billion of forward mortgages during the third quarter of 2017, the highest three-month volume for the year, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside FHA/VA Lending. Third-quarter volume was up 9.6 percent from the April-June cycle. The data excluded FHA reverse mortgages and loan amounts are truncated in Ginnie’s mortgage-backed securities disclosures. Without those limitations, total Ginnie MBS issuance rose 9.5 percent to $123.37 billion in the third quarter. Purchase mortgages were the engine behind the growth. Ginnie issuers securitized $85.35 billion of purchase loans in the third quarter, falling just short of the record $85.41 billion set in the third quarter of last year. Although most Ginnie purchase loans (58.7 percent) were FHA loans, the biggest increase was in such loans guaranteed by the ... [Charts]
Private mortgage insurers captured a larger share of the purchase-mortgage market during the third quarter of 2017 as the credit profile of new FHA production tilted toward riskier business, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securitized $64.59 billion of purchase loans with private MI coverage during the third quarter, a 28.5 percent jump from the previous period. That was substantially greater than the ... [Includes three data charts]
Efforts by Congressional Republicans to expand exemptions to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s new Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data collection and reporting requirements may or may not succeed. But any lender or aggregator seeking to sell eligible mortgages to the government-sponsored enterprises will still have to get with the program. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue to tweak their systems and processes to accommodate the new mandates, scheduled to kick in Jan. 1 ...
The Federal Housing Finance Agency wants the government-sponsored enterprises and the Federal Home Loan Banks to hire chief information security officers to head their cybersecurity programs. The new directive was released just after the FHFA Office of Inspector General issued an audit faulting the regulator’s oversight of cybersecurity issues, and in the wake of further revelations about data breaches at Equifax and other large enterprises. The FHFA said Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the ...
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