Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have created a limited prototype of their somewhat controversial standardized securitization platform and are working to address industry feedback, according to officials at the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the government-sponsored enterprises. Speaking at the American Securitization Forum’s ASF 2013 conference this week in Las Vegas, Patrick Lawler, chief economist at the FHFA, said a limited prototype of the securitization platform has been developed. Wanda DeLeo, deputy director of the FHFA’s office of strategic initiatives, said the GSEs continue to work on the prototype, which is based largely on the architecture outlined in an October white paper from the FHFA. The white paper received...

The government-sponsored enterprises are working several different risk-transfer pilots and will soon issue the securities, according to officials at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Non-agency MBS investors appear eager for the securities, though a number of regulatory concerns remain, including complications with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Patrick Lawler, chief economist at the FHFA, said a risk-sharing transaction will hopefully be issued in the “not too distant future.” Speaking at the American Securitization Forum’s ASF 2013 conference this week in Las Vegas, Lawler and other officials with the FHFA and GSEs said risk-sharing transactions are a high priority this year. “The commitment is...

Lenders One, the nation’s largest mortgage cooperative, is telling its members they need to get their Fannie Mae servicing approvals by the end of January to be eligible for discounts under an affinity deal it has with the GSE.

Most securities issuers and investors who attended this week’s American Securitization Forum ASF 2013 conference in Las Vegas were optimistic about the market. “We are seeing demand that we have not seen in years,” said Michael Binz, a managing director and business leader of North America ABS at Standard & Poor’s. Binz noted that the mood at the conference a year ago was starkly different, with fewer investors, diminishing supply and regulatory uncertainty. About 5,660 people registered to attend the conference this year, up from 5,000 last year, according to Tom Deutsch, executive director of the ASF. Deutsch noted...

Mortgage banking income increased at a faster rate than did secondary market sales during the third quarter of 2012. Huge gain-on-sale margins pushed the industry to its most profitable quarter, according to an analysis of call report numbers by Inside Mortgage Trends.

Fannie Mae is ending the practice of assigning different guaranty-fee discounts to the various “affinity groups” or cooperatives that pool mortgages for sale into the secondary market, Inside Mortgage Finance has learned.

During the final three months of 2012, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securitized some $52.72 billion of single-family home loans that were covered by private mortgage insurance, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis.

The federal judge in charge of overseeing multiple lawsuits filed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency against non-agency mortgage-backed securities issuers for misrepresenting deals that were sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rebuffed yet another motion by one of the banks to shut down the legal action.

Underwater homeowners who have remained current on their payments and who can demonstrate a “hardship” may be eligible to relinquish their homes, cancel their mortgage debt and avoid the messy foreclosure process under the terms of a Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac policy change to take effect in March. The two government-sponsored enterprises will broaden the authority of their servicers to approve a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure to non-delinquent Fannie or Freddie borrowers who can no longer afford to stay in the home. Effective March 1, the new deed-in-lieu option is...