As of Wednesday morning, a GSE shareholder petition accessible through the White House website had 874 of the 100,000 signatures required by July 1.

Ellington Management under new mortgage chief Steve Abreu may go on a purchase tear, rolling up companies.

Wells Fargo was the top-ranked non-agency jumbo lender in the first quarter with $9.67 billion, nearly double the next closest lender.

We continue to hear reports that certain commercial banks are discouraging their residential loan officers to take the state test and get licensed.

The prospect of legislation being offered that would grant the Department of Housing and Urban Development greater authority to manage the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program has improved significantly after two House lawmakers declared their intention to introduce a bipartisan bill. Reps. Michael Fitzpatrick, R-PA, and Denny Heck, D-WA, announced during a recent hearing by the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance that they will co-sponsor legislation to give the FHA the authority it needs to swiftly implement HECM reforms by mortgagee letter. Fitzpatrick expressed his support for ...

A recent Federal Reserve survey of bank lending practices further confirmed a continuing trend among FHA lenders of refusing to lend to borrowers with FICO scores below 620 even though they qualify for the loan and could afford the required minimum 3.5 percent cash investment. About a third of senior loan officers who responded to the April 2013 survey indicated they were less likely to approve FHA home-purchase loan applications within the 580-620 FICO range this year compared to last year. They prefer lending to borrowers with a 720 FICO and who are making a 10 to 20 percent downpayment, the survey showed. An estimated 75 percent of banks cited the ...

Legislation to reform the government-sponsored enterprises is starting to appear in the Senate. Last week, Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-GA, introduced S. 1048, similar to the “Mortgage Finance Act” he introduced in 2011. The bill would revoke the charters of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac upon resolution of their obligations and create a new Mortgage Finance Agency for securitization. Sens. Bob Corker, R-TN, and Mark Warner, D-VA, are also working on a bill that would replace Fannie and ... [Includes two briefs]

An increase of 10 basis points in the guaranty fees charged by the government-sponsored enterprises would make pricing for agency execution comparable to pricing for non-agency mortgage-backed security issuance, according to industry analysts. Agency g-fees averaged about 50 bps at the end of 2012, with plans for further increases this year. “The economics of non-agency securitization are much closer to GSE securitizations today than they were two years ago,” according to analysts at Barclays Capital ...

The amount of non-agency MBS held by the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks continued its steady decline during the first quarter of 2013. Non-agency MBS investments by the FHLBanks came to $24.69 billion as of March 31, 2013, down 2.9 percent from the fourth quarter of 2012 and off 13.5 percent from $28.52 billion in the same period a year ago. Non-agency MBS made up...[Includes one data chart]

A Senate bill filed last week by a Georgia Republican would wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and create a transitional mortgage program that would be sold to the private sector within a decade of the proposed legislation’s enactment. The Mortgage Finance Act of 2013, S. 1048, by Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-GA, reprises his proposed legislation of the same name from 2011. The bill would replace the two government-sponsored enterprises with a single Mortgage Finance Agency. The MFA created under S. 1048 would be...