Japan became the biggest overseas investor in U.S. MBS and ABS markets last year, moving past mainland China to head the ranking, according to final Treasury Department data. Japanese investors held $199.7 billion of U.S. MBS and ABS as of the midway point in 2012, the one time a year when Treasury releases detailed foreign holdings of U.S. long-term securities. That was up 21.3 percent from June 2011, when Japan held just $164.7 billion of MBS and ABS. The Japanese increased...[Includes one data chart]
Investors in vintage non-agency MBS could take $7.8 billion in losses due to previously undisclosed principal forbearance on top of the $1.0 billion in losses uncovered this month. However, a survey suggests that servicers don’t intend to pass the losses through to investors. The losses recognized in May were reported after Ocwen Financial took over servicing from Homeward Residential. Analysts warned that other servicing transfers could prompt similar losses. Bank of America Merrill Lynch said...
The SEC will push for admissions of guilt as part of settlements of lawsuits it files against private industry, including participants in the MBS market.
It appears that Cerberus is going down the mortgage aisle one more time. Let's hope it doesn't end like GMAC. Meanwhile, jumbo MBS market seizes up, temporarily.
Lenders that originate home loans to hold in portfolio are concerned about the regulatory consequences of originating non-qualified mortgages. While some have asked for a blanket exemption from liability for non-QMs held in portfolio, Democrats in Congress appear unlikely to approve such changes. “Congress should amend the ability-to-repay statute to grant QM status to all mortgage loans held in portfolio by community banks,” Charles Vice, commissioner of the Kentucky Department of ...
Implementation of state-specific servicing standards like California’s would impose "divergent and conflicting standards" that will add costs to future home buyers and create confusion, said one MBA official.
Republican and Democrat lawmakers in the Senate formally unveiled their ambitious plan to replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with a new federal entity providing backstop guaranties for securities backed by high-quality conventional mortgages. Although they made a variety of changes to a “discussion draft” version of the legislation that has been widely circulated in recent weeks, the proposal still faces a huge hurdle in the House despite winning generally favorable reactions from industry groups. As it was introduced this week, S. 1217, the Housing Finance Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act of 2013, would create...
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, responding to input from the mortgage lending community, this week issued a number of proposed clarifications and revisions to its controversial new rule on loan originators, as well as other mortgage rules set to take effect in January 2014. Separately, CFPB Director Richard Cordray made clear that the agency will not delay implementation of the new rules, which include determining a borrower’s ability to repay and massive changes in mortgage servicing requirements. In a speech late last week, he promised to work with the industry to ensure as smooth an implementation process as possible. “We would make...
In a legal development that could be pivotal for the tenure of Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau – as well as the scope of the agency’s authority – the Supreme Court of the United States announced this week that it was taking on Noel Canning v. National Labor Relations Board. In Canning, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled earlier this year that President Obama’s three recess appointments to the NLRB were unconstitutional. If the SCOTUS upholds that determination, it could eventually spell the end for Cordray’s tenure at the helm of the bureau, numerous attorneys concur, given that he was named to the CFPB as a recess appointment in the same announcement in which the President revealed his NLRB appointments. There’s more...
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