Nomura Holdings is unlikely to suffer a hit in ratings because of the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s mortgage-backed securities lawsuit, but the litigation may yet prove costly to the Japanese financial holding company, according to a recent report from Fitch Ratings. Nomura went to trial on March 16 to defend itself against allegations that it misrepresented the underlying asset quality of MBS it sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac prior to the financial crisis ...
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue to turn their focus in loan-quality reviews to more freshly originated mortgages, the vast majority of which are current. A new Inside The GSEs analysis of disclosures made by the GSEs to the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that most of the lender repurchases made in 2014 continued to be associated with older, pre-crisis loans. But the biggest volume of pending and unresolved buyback demands were tied to loans securitized in 2013 and 2014. Sellers repurchased or provided indemnification on some $4.046 billion of mortgages during 2014, the disclosures reveal. They were split roughly evenly between Freddie ($2.031 billion) and Fannie ($2.014 billion)...[includes exclusive chart]
A bill to replace the Federal Housing Finance Agency with a beefed up Ginnie Mae and set Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on a path to liquidation has been reintroduced in the House. The Partnership to Strengthen Homeownership Act was first introduced in July 2014 to wind down Fannie and Freddie over a five-year timeframe. Reps. John Delaney, D-MD, John Carney, D-DE, and Jim Himes, D-CT, are the lead sponsors of the measure. They said the bill takes the best ideas from both parties to create a housing finance system that combines the strengths of the private and public sectors.The congressmen agreed that things need to be done differently.
Over the past month, Ocwen Financial has unveiled agreements to sell roughly $89.4 billion of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac servicing rights – transactions that require approval from not only the GSEs, but their regulator/conservator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency.To date, the FHFA has made no public statements regarding Ocwen’s sales and isn’t likely to until it actually makes an approval or denial.Based on the transactions that have been announced since Feb. 23, there is little to indicate that the deals won’t pass regulatory muster. The receivables being off-loaded by the troubled servicer are considered to be pristine in nature and with little in the way of delinquencies.
Members of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Development cited a lack of flexibility to accommodate multiple types of users, a biased board of directors, and an unacceptable timeframe as their primary concerns about the common securitization platform. The bipartisan group of eight senators, led by Republican Chairman Bob Corker (TN), articulated their concerns surrounding the development and usage of the planned CSP in a letter addressed to Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt. Primarily, they want to ensure that the CSP is designed to be just as usable and beneficial to the private sector as it is for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in order to avoid “the duopolistic tendencies of the past.”
It’s still unclear whether the Home Affordable Refinance Program, set to expire in December, will be extended and if eligibility requirements will be altered. During remarks at a JPMorgan conference in March, Bob Ryan, special advisor to Mel Watt, Federal Housing Finance Agency director, said that a decision needs to be made in the coming months. HARP, introduced in 2009 as a way for borrowers with little or no home equity to refinance mortgages into affordable payments, was originally set to expire at the end of 2013 but was extended through this year. Close to 3.3 million loans were refinanced through HARP since it began in 2009, and as of September 2014 there were...
Bank and thrift members had drawn a combined $437.7 million in Federal Home Loan Bank advances at the end of the fourth quarter of 2014, according to the Inside Mortgage Finance Bank Mortgage Database. That number represents an 11.6 percent increase from the previous quarter and an 18.8 percent increase from the same period a year earlier. Top-ranked JPMorgan Chase’s use of advances rose 8.3 percent and reflected its largest amount of advances used sequentially during 2014. The bank had drawn $60.0 million in the third quarter. Its advances were up 5.0 percent on a year-over-year basis. Second-ranked Wells Fargo remained steady with no quarterly percentage change of its $34.1 million in advances used. [exclusive data chart included]
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