Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will try to transfer the credit risk on 90 percent of their mainstream mortgage business in 2016 under new marching orders from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, but next year’s activity may end up being less than the 2015 total. The FHFA in the past has set credit-risk transfer goals based on specific dollar amounts. But next year’s target is to sell some of the credit risk on nearly all of the fixed-rate mortgages the two government-sponsored enterprises buy that have loan terms exceeding 20 years and loan-to-value ratios over 60 percent. Activity in the dwindling Home Affordable Refinance Program will be excluded. In the first 11 months of 2015, the two GSEs securitized...
The U.S. residential MBS sector will continue its slow, steady recovery in 2016 amid a host of challenges, showing further improvement in housing fundamentals, credit quality and mortgage performance, according to analysts. The challenges to MBS structured financing boil down to the following: tapering of Federal Reserve investment in MBS, MBS supply and demand, interest rates and prepayment risk. Fitch Ratings notes...
The Golden State accounted for $19.4 billion of VA loans in Ginnie pools at the end of the nine-month period. The Old Dominion State accounted for $10.1 billion in VA loans in Ginnie MBS.
The national loan limit for FHA-insured single-family mortgages will remain unchanged throughout 2016, but 188 counties will see their high-cost limits rise due to house-price changes. The FHA national loan limit “ceiling” for forward mortgages will remain at $625,500, while the FHA “floor” will stay at $271,050 for next year. For example, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Marin, and Silicon Valley, where the loan limits are currently at $625,500, will see no change in 2016. The same will be true for many counties whose FHA loan limits fall between the national floor and ceiling, like Sacramento and Fresno, for instance. On the other hand, 188 counties like Napa, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego will see their forward loan limits increase by at least $1,150 to as much as $30,240. Each year, FHA readjusts its loan limits based on 115 percent of the median house price in the area. The loan-limit floor is set at ...