Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made it clear after being nominated that resolving the conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be a top priority for his department. And although Mnuchin will clearly be a player in the debate, the policy “ax” on the issue will be Craig Phillips, recently tapped to serve as counselor with an agenda that includes fixing the two government-sponsored enterprises. Most mortgage professionals have applauded President Trump’s pick of Mnuchin and now Phillips. Mnuchin was the former head of Goldman Sachs’ MBS department, and Phillips was a former managing director of Morgan Stanley’s fixed-income division. Phillips was...
The mortgage market has paid close attention to a lawsuit brought by PHH Mortgage that challenges the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Trump administration’s recent move to side with the mortgage lender. Now, the Treasury Department is making a similar argument that the structure of the Federal Housing Finance Agency is also unconstitutional. Both the CFPB and FHFA, the regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are independent agencies led by a single director whom the president can only fire for cause. In an advisory filed March 24, the Treasury backed...
There was little change in the amount of agency MBS held by the Federal Reserve in 2016 compared to the previous year, although the account generated a whopping $46.3 billion in net interest income last year. The 2016 net interest gains from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae MBS were down slightly from 2015, when the Fed reported $49.0 billion, according to an independent annual audit of the Fed. Conducted by KPMG, the audit estimated...
But isn’t the job of a conservator to preserve assets? If CRT deals are bad financially for Fannie and Freddie, isn’t it time to pull the plug on them?...
A proposal in Congress to define all mortgages held in portfolio as qualified mortgages has some bipartisan support, but lenders are divided on the matter. “I caution the use of portfolios to add loans that are not standard,” said David Motley, president of Colonial Companies and chairman-elect of the Mortgage Bankers Association. “The rules of the qualified mortgage, I believe, should be the same for everybody.” He made the remarks this week at a hearing by the ...
FHA-insured jumbo lending fell slightly in the fourth quarter of 2016 although year-over-year results were a lot better. Production of conforming-jumbo purchase and refinance loans insured by the FHA slipped 0.9 percent in the fourth quarter, a slight bump on the way to an annual jumbo origination total of $26.9billion. Year-over-year, FHA jumbo production was up 5.6 percent from 2015. Conforming-jumbo loans represented 9.8 percent of FHA loans securitized last year, according to data compiled by affiliated newsletter Inside Mortgage Finance. Purchase mortgages comprised 64.9 percent of jumbo loans insured by FHA in 2016 and 98.7 percent were fixed-rate loans. Nonbanks comprised the top five FHA jumbo lenders. Wells Fargo, which closed the year with $423.8 million in FHA jumbo originations, was in sixth place. Quicken Loans led the field with $802.5 million of ... [ Charts ]
The Department of Veterans Affairs and mortgage industry stakeholders are working to resolve the churning problem in the VA Home Loan Guaranty program. It appears the agency is unhappy that Ginnie Mae’s recent pooling policy change was only partially effective in discouraging early solicitation of VA purchase loans for refinancing. Apparently, the practice is continuing and is adversely affecting mortgage-backed securities investors who are not getting full return on their investments. The Mortgage Bankers Association said a handful of lenders and mortgage brokers are still engaging in serial refinancing of VA purchase loans within six months of closing, causing faster prepayments in Ginnie MBS pools. Ginnie announced a policy change, which took effect on Feb. 1, 2017, clarifying that streamline refinance loans may be delivered into Ginnie MBS pools only if, at the ...
The Mortgage Bankers Association is urging Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson to rescind current guidance and prohibit future FHA financing of properties encumbered by a Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) tax lien. The guidance, which the Department of Housing and Urban Development implemented in July last year, should be eliminated unless the PACE lien is clearly subordinated to the FHA loan and national, standardized consumer protections are in place, the MBA said. The MBA said it has significant concerns with the risk posed by PACE financing to traditional lien priority and the FHA, as well as the lack of consumer protections. “Unfortunately, [current PACE guidance] does not reduce these concerns – it amplifies them,” the letter warned. PACE loans were developed to help finance energy-efficient retrofits, such as solar panels, energy-saving appliances and ...
The FHA will implement its new Loan Review System that features a defect taxonomy on May 15, 2017. The new system is designed to reduce potential lender liability when FHA loans go into default. The LRS will be used to manage FHA single-family loan and monitoring reviews as well as lender self-reporting of fraud, misrepresentation and other material findings. A change in the pre-endorsement loan review period from pre-closing to post-closing will also become effective on May 15. Scrutinizing loans after they close prior to endorsement for FHA insurance would ensure that loans have no material defects or material errors that could expose the lender to enforcement action or false-claim litigation and the likelihood of a hefty settlement. The defect taxonomy will help lenders identify and classify loan-level defects uncovered through individual loan reviews. Material loan defects have been narrowed down to ...
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