Talk about red hot! Sales of Ginnie Mae mortgage servicing rights soared in fiscal 2013, Inside Mortgage Finance has learned.

Meanwhile, Ginnie Mae securities posted a pocket-sized increase within the Federal Home Loan Bank system during the period ending Sept. 30, 2013.

MSR sales, in general, are expected to be brisk in the first quarter as lenders sell receivables to make up for declining originations.

Monthly production of single-family MBS went into a steady, year-long decline at the beginning of 2013. In December, total single-family MBS issuance fell to just $77.1 billion, the lowest monthly production figure since July 2011.

The sale was disclosed in a new SEC filing. The MSRs are backed by $10.8 billion of Ginnie Mae product.

One mortgage executive had this to say about the W.J. Bradley case: “This is fascinating for the implications of whether the LO or the company owns the customer. As you know, LOs have their little black books (or thumb drives) of all their customers and their information."

The FHA reviewed 6,692 government-insured loans between July 1 and Sept. 30, 70 percent of which were home-purchase loans.

The effort, known as Tier Ranking System II, was created to determine servicer compliance with delinquent servicing guidelines developed by HUD.

Mel Watt, the incoming director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, appears to be taking a less aggressive stance toward decreasing the government-sponsored enterprises’ dominance of the mortgage market than Ed DeMarco, the acting director of the FHFA. The FHFA in December announced changes to GSE mortgage-backed security guaranty fees that would amount to an average increase of approximately 11 basis points, to be implemented in March and April ...

Recent announcements of revised loan-level price adjustments for the government-sponsored enterprises and risk-based pricing are fueling fears of FHA resurgence in the market. Consistent with the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s stated intent to raise the GSE guaranty fees by about 11 basis points, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac released revised loan-level price adjustments (LLPAs) on Dec. 16. The upfront fee hike takes mortgage rates for affected borrowers close to FHA pricing levels, according to industry analysts.