Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issued $177.19 billion in single-family mortgage-backed securities during the third quarter of 2011, a modest 14.3 percent improvement following two straight quarterly declines during the first six months of this year.The recent July-September cycle represented one of the weakest quarters historically for GSE MBS production since the financial markets crashed at the end of 2008.

As the Federal Housing Finance Agency ponders possible improvements to the government’s Home Affordable Refinance Program, calls from different corners of the industry are growing louder for the FHFA to end fees charged to borrowers who refinance Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago’s long awaited capital stock conversion plan has received the thumbs up from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, moving the Bank a giant step toward regaining equal footing with its fellow FHLBanks.

Any changes that would restrict membership or narrow the Federal Home Loan Banks’ mission should come first from Congress not by administrative fiat, Bank officials told House members this week.FHLBank of Dallas Chairman Lee Gibson testified before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations that explicit Congressional guidance is both necessary and proper before any fundamental alteration of the FHLBank system is imposed.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency needs to explain why it hired expensive outside counsel instead of dispatching government lawyers in its massive litigation against the nation’s big financial institutions, as well as just how much the agency expects to recoup from the effort, according to a senior Republican congressman.

Despite the sound and fury from publicly peeved House Democrats directed at Federal Housing Finance Agency Acting Director Edward DeMarco, including calls for him to step aside, the consensus among industry insiders and those in the know on Capitol Hill is – good luck finding anyone else willing or able to jumpstart the underperforming GSE refinance plan while obeying the FHFA’s restrictive regulatory mandate.

Prepayments increased overall in September, particularly on agency fixed-rate MBS, with faster pay-downs occurring in lower coupons, according to analyst reviews of prepayment speeds. The experts expressed surprise at unexpectedly high prepayments for recent low coupon vintages and greater weakness for higher coupons. Deutsche Bank analysts reported that speeds for 4.0 percent Fannie Mae MBS issued in 2010 and 2009 more than doubled in September compared to the previous month. Speeds for similar MBS with 4.5 percent coupons increased also as much, they noted. For example, prepayment speeds for 2010 Fannie MBS with a 4.0 percent coupon...

The chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wants the Federal Housing Finance Agency to explain why it hired two outside law firms in a massive legal action to recover losses suffered by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on their investments in non-agency MBS. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA, wrote FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco on Sept. 29 asking why the agency hired outside counsel from Quinn Emanuel & Sullivan and from Kasowitz Benson Torres & Freidman to initiate lawsuits against financial institutions and how much the agency is paying them. Issa posed detailed questions and requested documents regarding...

Chase Home Finance surged past Bank of America to become the second most prolific producer of agency MBS during the third quarter, according to a new ranking by Inside MBS & ABS. Chase has played third fiddle behind BofA and Wells Fargo for the past few years, and still ranked third in agency MBS production on a year-to-date basis. But BofA has been dumping mortgage production capacity and trying to claw its way to higher ground while Chase has made modest gains in market share. Those trends are likely to accelerate in coming months as BofA closes down its correspondent business after failing to find a...(Includes two data charts)

Wells Fargo and Bank of America continued to dominate the FHA market, accounting for 19.1 percent of total FHA originations in August, according to Inside FHA Lending’s analysis of agency data. Top-ranked Wells Fargo and second-place BofA accounted for $3.07 billion of the $16.06 billion in FHA-insured mortgages produced by approved lenders in August. The August volume was up 8.7 percent from July but down 34.0 percent on a year-over-year basis. In-house originations accounted for 70.9 percent of volume while home purchase loans made up 79.3 percent of loans made to borrowers during the month. An estimated 93.6 percent of loans insured by FHA were ...