A GSE reform bill filed late this week by a trio of House Democrats is less a last ditch effort to push their measure across the finish line this year than a bid to have the first word in next year’s debate over housing finance reform, note industry observers. The Partnership to Strengthen Homeownership Act, H.R. 5055, by Reps. John Delaney (MD), John Carney (DE), and Jim Himes (CT), follows through on their January draft proposal to seek a “middle ground” between the existing, politically untenable legislative proposals.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency late this week finally unveiled new eligibility standards for the mortgage insurance industry, introducing for the first time risk-based capital rules that are tied to a measurement called “available assets.” Immediately after the rule hit the market, several MI firms said they support the idea that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must have strong financial counterparties, while hinting they will have more to say on the topic in the near future.

Last week, new GSE repurchase requirements announced this spring took effect as a potential alternative to repurchase for certain mortgage loans for which the mortgage insurance has been rescinded. Among the requirements are an “MI stand-in,” which Fannie Mae defines as “the full mortgage insurance benefit that would have been payable under the original mortgage insurance policy if the mortgage loan liquidates.” In May, both Fannie and Freddie Mac announced that repurchase requests will no longer be an automatic response in the event that MI is rescinded.

Modified Freddie Mac mortgages performed somewhat better than Fannie Mae loans for up to two years after modification as the performance gap between the two GSEs closed slowly, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The OCC’s latest Mortgage Metrics Report noted that Freddie loans had a 15.6 percent re-default rate six months after modification, while Fannie mods saw a 16.3 percent rate. At the 12-month mark, Freddie stood at 22.3 percent compared to Fannie’s 23.4 percent.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency remains committed under new management to deploy regulatory countermeasures against municipalities that move forward with proposed efforts to seize underwater mortgages via local eminent domain powers, agency officials say. After a quiet period when it appeared this issue was going away, eminent domain initiatives are cropping up again, including a recent push by a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to get the city to partner with Richmond, CA.

The next gold rush in the mortgage industry may be home loans that fall outside the legal safe harbor for qualified mortgages under new rules that took effect in January. And like any bonanza, it’s hard to tell how big the mother lode is. According to Deutsche Bank Securities, it could be a staggering $600 billion a year, but that estimate comes with a lot of caveats. For starters, Deutsche Bank estimated that about $52 billion of 2013 mortgage originations were ...

The Democratic proposal calls for private mortgage capital to backstop the first 5 percent of conventional-mortgage securitizations with the remaining 95 percent of risk shared “on a pari passu basis.”

Mortgage wholesalers are being extra careful these days on how much they pay loan brokers in a table-funding transaction to make sure they don’t run afoul of the points-and-fees cap on qualified mortgages set by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. According to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance over the past few weeks, table funders are capping those fees at anywhere from 2.20 percent to 2.75 percent. Some may go as low as 1.40 percent. The cap for qualified mortgage eligibility set by the CFPB under the Dodd-Frank Act is...

A number of consumer advocates strongly oppose a proposal from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that would allow lenders to cure mistakes regarding debt-to-income ratios on qualified mortgages. Lenders calling for the DTI ratio right-to-cure on QMs are making “Chicken Little” claims to support their arguments, according to the National Consumer Law Center and the National Association of Consumer Advocates. In April, the CFPB requested...

SunTrust Mortgage will pay $320 million to resolve a criminal investigation and allegations that the bank misled homeowners interested in the Home Affordable Modification Program, the Department of Justice announced late last week. In the first settled case of its kind, SunTrust allegedly misrepresented how long it would take to determine if a borrower was qualified for HAMP and how long the trial period would last. “Specifically, SunTrust made...