The proposed “Public Guarantor” to replace the government-sponsored enterprises would not only provide an explicit backstop for qualifying MBS in a post-GSE world, it would also serve as a regulator of sorts under terms spelled out in a housing policy paper issued this week. The report by the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Housing Commission called for a “far greater role” for the private sector in the mortgage market, a continued but limited role for the federal government, the graduated elimination of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and reform of the FHA. The BPC’s plan calls for...

Residential fundings are starting to slow as refinancings wane, according to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance.

Heavy refinance activity, especially through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, boosted the conventional conforming market by a whopping 35 percent in 2012.

According to a new analysis by Inside MBS & ABS, REIT MBS investors as a group increased their MBS holdings by 47.4 percent in 2012.

JPMorgan Chase will slash thousands of mortgage workers over the next 20 months.

The GSEs continued to wrangle with seller/servicers over repurchase requests during the fourth quarter of 2012, but mostly over loans originated five years earlier.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has not given up on its effort to install risk-based pricing for guaranty fees.

Potential issuers of new non-agency MBS are looking to establish representations and warranties that provide less protection for MBS investors, according to Fitch Ratings. The rating service said it will take a negative view on deals with reps and warrants that vary from the rating service’s standards, which largely mirror guidelines established by the American Securitization Forum. In a report released this week, Fitch said firms looking to issue non-agency MBS have been shopping deals with reps and warrants weaker than the new framework established by the Federal Housing Finance Authority for repurchase requests from the government-sponsored enterprises. The FHFA’s framework, which went into effect in January, includes a sunset for underwriting reps and most fraud reps if a borrower makes 36 consecutive timely payments, which Fitch said would not necessarily unduly expose MBS investors to greater losses. Rui Pereira, a managing director and head of U.S. residential MBS ratings at Fitch, said...

Wells Fargo, the nation's largest home funder, is continuing to review its mortgage joint ventures.

Wells Fargo suffered a big legal setback after a federal judge denied its request to enforce a consent judgment under last year’s landmark $25 billion servicing settlement to prevent a New York lawsuit from proceeding. Judge Rosemary Collyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected Wells Fargo’s argument that the new government suit filed in Manhattan district court was improper because it violated the consent judgment against Wells Fargo and flies in the face of the judgment’s “liability release” provision. Wells Fargo argued that the allegations in a civil mortgage fraud suit filed by ...