The independent dispute-resolution option recently announced by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was billed as the last step in the three-year effort to re-duce seller buybacks, but the govern-ment-sponsored enterprises have a new project in the works. The GSEs are working on a “com-plementary effort to assess the possibility of granting appraisal-related representation-and-warranty relief shortly after acquiring a loan,” the Federal Housing Finance Agency revealed in its recent progress report on the GSEs. Fannie and Freddie last year rolled out new tools to help lenders assess appraisal quality...

PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust recently entered into its third front-end risk-sharing trans-action with Fannie Mae. The real estate investment trust said it has seen strong returns from such deals, potentially paving the way for other lenders to directly share credit risk with the government-sponsored enterprises. The third credit-risk transfer agreement between PennyMac and Fannie involves $5.0 billion in unpaid principal balance of mortgages acquired by the nonbank from correspondents. In a slide presen-tation, the REIT said it expects to invest $175.0 million as part of the CRT deal. PennyMac also recently completed deliveries into its second CRT transaction with Fannie. The agreement involved mortgages with an unpaid principal balance of $4.25 billion and a $149 million in-vestment by the REIT.

In hopes of clearing up some disputes among banks about the effectiveness of property evalua-tions, federal banking regulatory agencies clarified when it is appropriate to use evaluations in place of the more detailed appraisals in real estate transactions. The Office of the Comptroller of Currency, along with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said in a joint advisory last week that there are three types of transactions where an appraisal is not required and an evaluation is permitted. The agencies did point out that an appraisal may be necessary for secondary-market transactions. Home price is the first consideration. Evaluations can be used in transactions in which the loan...

Refinance activity was heavy in the first half of 2015, and jumbo borrowers typically have more to gain by pulling the refi trigger.

In some quarters, experts wonder how much more nonbanks can grow given capital concerns and interest rate volatility.

In dollars and cents, additional spending at Fannie totaled $726 million over the four-year period, while at Freddie the reading was a more benign $376 million.

PHH has been losing money and so far this year its stock price has been hammered.

Sources close to D’Urso said his termination by Radian was a “total surprise” to him as well.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency cautioned that the pilots are in their early stages...

How well the nonbanks have done with regulators – and dealing with volatile interest rate swings – is best looked at through the prism of their share prices. And in that regard, Ocwen Financial has suffered the most, easily.