The decline in high-cost conforming loan limits set to occur later this year will affect a small fraction of the more than 300,000 counties in the U.S., according to an analysis released last week by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. However, concerns remain that the non-agency sector will not adequately serve...
Non-agency mortgage-backed securities investors do not have enough confidence to allow for accelerated reform of the government-sponsored enterprises, according to Michael Berman, chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association. “The key is the private markets have spoken that they don’t have confidence,” Berman said last week in...
Hoping to capitalize on the growing market for special servicing, Walter Investment Management announced last week that it plans to acquire Green Tree Credit Solutions. Walter said it will purchase the special servicer for $1.065 billion and Walter will have to drop its status as a real-estate investment trust. Green Tree currently services...
The Home Affordable Modification Program continues to be criticized for the pace of activity, but one segment of the market has embraced HAMP: servicers with loans in portfolio. While HAMP accounted for 27.0 percent of all mods completed by major banks and thrifts in the fourth quarter of 2010, HAMP accounted for 50.2 percent of...
In what may be an omen of a deeper slide of volume in the months to come, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw their issuance of new mortgage-backed securities drop 21.4 percent in the first quarter of the year from the prior period, the latest data from the Inside Mortgage Finance GSE MarketScope show...[includes one full-page chart]
The leading financial institutions that provide mortgage loans eligible to be sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continued to gradually tighten their underwriting and incrementally increase the quality of their business in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to the latest data from the Inside Mortgage Finance MBS Database. As refinance mortgages became...[Includes one data chart]
The advance business of the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks continued to shrink again in the fourth quarter of 2010, dropping 24.2 percent from the previous year to $478.59 billion, according to preliminary figures released by the FHLBank Office of Finance. The decline came...[Includes one data chart]
Private mortgage insurer Essent Guaranty has announced an enhancement to its master policy for mortgage insurance that would help reduce lender exposure to rescission and unpaid MI claims. Dubbed “Clarity of Coverage,” the enhancement is a written assurance added to the master policy that MI coverage will not be...
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue to inch toward profitability in a market that remains dicey, tentative and uneven – all while navigating between escalating dividend payouts to the Treasury Department and a steep drop in their need for additional capital infusions. Over the last 12 months, the two GSEs have seen...[Includes one data chart]
The Federal Trade Commission has announced the appointment of Edward Hassi as chief litigation officer for the agency’s Bureau of Competition. He replaces J. Robert Robertson, who left the agency in 2010 to return to private practice. Hassi is formerly a partner at the Washington, DC, law firm O’Melveny & Myers, where he served...
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