Recapitalizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is a good idea, according to the Congressional Budget Office, which said that it wouldn’t significantly change how the government-sponsored enterprises operate today, but it would help stabilize the mortgage market and the federal budget. In response to several legislative proposals calling for the GSEs to build capital, the CBO recently published a report studying the effects of an “illustrative policy option.” Fannie and Freddie capital will...

The Internal Revenue Service has decided to hold off on making changes to its Secure Access Program, which governs the process by which federal tax transcripts are provided to the mortgage industry, after industry trade groups objected. The changes, part of an effort by the agency to better protect taxpayer data as well as IRS systems from attacks by cybercriminals, had been scheduled to kick in at the start of this week. “To ensure a smooth transition, the IRS has decided...

The ICBA noted that community banks have invested heavily in complying with the disclosure rules, but the complexity of the requirements has made it inevitable that some will be found non-compliant.

Ginnie Mae President Ted Tozer noted that investor participation “depends, in part, on a level of confidence that investment returns can be expected to be reasonably aligned with market conditions.”

Wedbush's Henry Coffey notes that PHH is “facing a number of challenges,” including a struggle to restore profitability…

Pairing real estate agents with loan brokers? RESPA attorneys start your engines...

Some loan brokers we spoke with were skeptical about the RE/MAX concept...

CBO’s comments were contained in a report that takes a “what if” approach to allowing Fannie and Freddie to retain as much as $5 billion of capital a year for 10 years...

For Mel Watt, he's at the halfway point...

Issuance of non-mortgage ABS increased by 25.5 percent from the second quarter of 2016 to the third, thanks to significant increases in several asset categories, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking. The market produced $54.05 billion of non-mortgage ABS during the third quarter, the highest output since the second quarter of last year. Despite the gain, year-to-date issuance remained 1.9 percent below the level notched in the first nine months of 2015. A lot of the increase came...[Includes two data tables]