Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae produced just $86.69 billion of single-family MBS during November, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis. Last month’s production was down 19.1 percent from October’s volume and represented the weakest issuance since the agency MBS market started to take off in February of this year. All three agencies saw...[Includes two data tables]
The Urban Institute has suggested separating FHA’s reverse mortgage business from future actuarial audits of the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund because it is producing a skewed picture of MMIF finances. In a recent blog, Laurie Goodman, director of the institute’s Housing Finance Policy Center, said including the highly volatile and unpredictable Home Equity Conversion Mortgage portfolio in FHA’s solvency calculation severely distorts the fund’s true financial condition ...
As the Federal Housing Finance Agency continues to ramp up efforts to get the word out about the Home Affordable Refinance Program, which is officially down to its last 12 months, the agency reported a sharp 18 percent quarterly decline in the number of takers in the third quarter of 2015. There were 25,824 HARP refinances in the third quarter, down from the 31,561 HARP refinances completed in the second quarter, according to new loan-count figures released by the FHFA. HARP activity accounted for about 5 percent of all refinances in the third quarter, mirroring that of the previous quarter. While both GSEs were down in HARP refi volume, Fannie Mae had more activity than Freddie...
“Some of you work the regular hours with minimal extra ... and this will not work,” an assistant vice president and underwriting manager at Franklin American said in an email to underwriters...
Although most of the heavy lifting in writing new rules for the mortgage industry has passed, federal regulators still have some significant projects in the works, according to recently released semiannual regulatory agendas. The Federal Housing Finance Agency expects to release a proposed “duty-to-serve” regulation for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the end of this year. The rulemaking was mandated by the 2008 Housing and Economic Recovery Act but hasn’t gotten much attention since the agency published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking back in August 2009. The FHFA is...