Over the past year, mortgage lenders have been clamoring for pricing breaks from the government-sponsored enterprises as well as the FHA, but so far nothing has changed. But is the industry’s luck about to turn? A handful of GSE watchers interviewed by Inside Mortgage Finance believe there’s a greater likelihood of a cut in FHA premiums before the fall election as opposed to the Federal Housing Finance Agency doing something about loan-level price adjustments or guaranty fees. In general, it’s...
The Federal Housing Finance Agency is looking for ways to expand the credit-risk transfer programs at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but showing little interest in a proposal being pushed by the Mortgage Bankers Association and private mortgage insurers. The regulator of the two government-sponsored enterprises recently issued a request for comment on front-end risk sharing without directly discussing the concept of sellers getting reduced guaranty fees for loans that have more than the required level of private MI coverage. It did, however, cite counterparty risk as one of the key issues in credit-risk transfers. As of Dec. 31, 2015, the GSEs had transferred...