One senior mortgage manager, who has been in the business for 25 years., said despite what lenders may say about closing times, actual experience is probably worse. “No one is closing under 30 days,” he said. “Most will be over 50 days.”
With several cases underway involving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Investors Unite hosted a status update teleconference in which one legal scholar referred to the Fairholmes case as an “open scandal” because of the government’s refusal to make the documents surrounding the case public.The three cases discussed included Fairholmes Fund v. The United States, Perry Capital Inc. v. Lew, and an individual shareholders suit in Iowa. Both RichardEpstein, NYU law professor and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago, and Matthew McGill, partner with Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, who is representing Perry Capital in its lawsuit and subsequent appeal, questioned the government’s secrecy in these cases. “The Obama administration has pledged to be the most open, and they have completely failed in this regard,” said Epstein.
New issuance of non-mortgage ABS increased in most major product categories during the second quarter of 2015, although a slowdown in floorplan deals dampened the party slightly. The ABS market generated $54.15 billion in new issuance during the second quarter, a gain of 5.8 percent from the first three months of 2015. It was the strongest new issuance figure since the financial market meltdown, with the previous high ($54.22 billion) coming in the third quarter of 2007. ABS issuance has climbed...[Includes two data tables]
JPMorgan Chase has released an expansive look into third-party due diligence findings on a pending jumbo MBS under new disclosure requirements from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The increased loan-level disclosures could boost investor confidence in new non-agency MBS. Documents filed through the SEC’s electronic system and posted on the agency’s website include detailed, loan-level reports from three due diligence firms that examined mortgages set to be included in JPMorgan Mortgage Trust 2015-4. American Mortgage Consultants, a due diligence provider, said...
The average daily trading volume in agency MBS fell to $183.7 billion in June, the lowest reading of the year and another sign that all is not well for anyone who makes their living off of actual trading as opposed to being involved in new issuance. “There are a lot of people out there buying on credit and keeping MBS,” said Christopher Whalen, a senior managing director in the Financial Institutions Ratings Group at Kroll Bond Rating Agency. Whalen added...
A bipartisan pair of lawmakers from the House of Representatives found fault with the Obama administration this week for not making housing finance and reform of the government-sponsored enterprises a priority. Failing that, they’re not certain there would be enough support from both sides of the aisle to get a comprehensive bill pushed through the pipeline and signed by the president. “I don’t think the White House has sent a positive signal about participating in this process,” said Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-TX, during a housing finance reform discussion in Washington, DC, this week sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center. “It’s such a big lift. You need to make sure that if you’re going down that road, that you have the opportunity to accomplish something.” His colleague, Rep. John Delaney, D-MD, agreed...
In the eyes of some Federal Reserve watchers, Fed chief Janet Yellen has become a master of making every public appearance a bit of a Rorschach test, giving fans and critics alike just enough of what they want to hear to reinforce their pre-existing viewpoints. Her semi-annual Humphrey-Hawkins testimony on Fed monetary policy before Congress this week was another prime example of this, with Wall Street types hopeful of a rise in interest rates sometime later this year, and contrarians increasingly unconvinced and dismissive. For instance, labor markets are showing...
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