Mortgage real estate investments trusts might get more active in the credit risk transfer activity of government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after U.S. Rep. Ed Royce, R-CA, this week seemed to secure a commitment from Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Mary Jo White to help facilitate such greater involvement. “What we’ve been trying to do … is to take a strong interest in housing finance reform and see how we can move forward ...

Last week, Wall Street groups and some Washington, DC, allies raised concerns that the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s Fundamental Review of the Trading Book (FRTB) proposed standard will have potentially negative effects on U.S. securitized products. The proposal could hamper the recovery of the non-agency MBS market, the resolution of government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the full restoration of mortgage credit availability ...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency filed a motion last week to dismiss a lawsuit that was filed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders in Delaware this summer who argued that the Treasury sweep of the government-sponsored enterprises’ profits is illegal under state law. The complaint stated that with Fannie chartered under Delaware law and Freddie under Virginia’s jurisdiction, the preferred stock of a corporation cannot be given a cumulative dividend right equal to all the ...

Prospect Mortgage said that although it settled, the lender did not admit “to any alleged violations of applicable laws, regulations or rules..."

In the same blog post, Hsieh – who did not talk to the press about the scuttled IPO – described loanDepot as a “unicorn startup,” calling it “one of the very few success stories not from Silicon Valley.

Servicers’ use of property-management contractors has helped save costs and increase efficiencies but also opened servicers to liability, according to an analysis of litigation involving contractors. Christopher Odinet, an assistant professor of law at the Southern University Law Center, noted that servicers’ reliance on property-management firms increased in recent years due to long timelines for delinquencies and foreclosures. Servicers hire the firms to inspect ...

With the CFPB’s legal action against PHH Corp. pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, a number of experts are revisiting the bureau’s enforcement actions related to marketing services agreements for clues as to how best to proceed going forward. What some of them are finding should give the industry pause. During a webinar this week, Jonathan Foxx, president and managing director at Lenders Compliance Group, a consulting firm ...

Some realtors who have closed sales subject to TRID said the process went smoothly while others reported extended potential closing timelines...

Given the president’s intention to defend the Dodd-Frank Act for the remainder of his term, an industry-wide QM safe harbor for portfolio mortgages is “a heavy lift,” said former FHA chief Dave Stevens.

Quite a few executives believe the central bank should move forward with a “one and done” strategy and be done with it...