Non-agency MBS investors looked to the practices of the government-sponsored enterprises when establishing the standards for a deal agent, according to Alessandro Pagani, a portfolio manager and head of securitized assets at Loomis Sayles. “The GSEs were very effective in enforcing their rights as owners of the collateral; they had access to information and real enforcement power to put back loans that needed to be put back and direct servicers,” he said at the recent ABS East conference produced by Information Management Network. The Deal Agent Committee released...
The post-crisis market environment that fueled the mortgage loan buyback dynamic continues to improve, and with it, the business relationships between lenders, investors and the government-sponsored enterprises. However, the repurchase and indemnification phenomenon has not gone away and is unlikely to do so for the foreseeable future. That means market participants need a comprehensive strategy to limit their exposure to litigation and, when that fails, to restrict the damage that does ensue, according to some top industry attorneys. This may be particularly important for correspondent lenders. “In order to go ahead and get a good perspective for what your company’s potential risk is, how do you go...
A Manhattan district court judge last week dismissed lawsuits brought by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. against three large banks, saying the agency no longer has standing to sue after it sold the defective mortgages through a re-securitization transaction. Judge Andrew Carter of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York threw out the government’s suits against Citigroup, Bank of New York Mellon and U.S. Bancorp, which accused the banks of failing as trustees to ensure the quality of $2.7 billion in MBS purchased by the failed Texas-based Guaranty Bank. Reuters was the first to report Carter’s decision. Guaranty went...
Special treatment for the government-sponsored enterprises regarding debt-to-income ratios on qualified mortgages and “emergency” high-cost loan limits accounted for about 25.0 percent of the single-family business that passed through the GSEs in the first half of 2016, according to an analysis by affiliated publication Inside The GSEs. In the first six months of 2016, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securitized $64.52 billion of single-family mortgages with DTI ratios ...
Some $41.77 billion in higher-priced mortgages were sold in 2015, down 19.9 percent from 2014, according to an Inside Nonconforming Markets analysis of recently released data under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. Their share of total loan sales also decreased in 2015 to 3.3 percent. Higher-priced mortgages are sometimes seen as a proxy for nonprime mortgages. First-lien higher-priced mortgages are defined as loans with an ... [Includes one data chart]
Regulatory actions and lawsuits involving non-qualified mortgages have been essentially non-existent since the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability-to-repay rule took effect at the start of 2014. R. Andrew Arculin, counsel at the Venable law firm, noted that the broader economy has helped keep borrowers performing, limiting foreclosures to this point. “One of the lurking variables that I think people are concerned about is what happens if the market crashes and ...
Requiring an undercapitalized issuer to repurchase uninsured performing mortgages out of a mortgage-backed securities pool could increase risk to the federal government, warned Ginnie Mae. Responding to an adverse audit report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of the Inspector General, Ginnie said that while it generally accepts the IG’s recommendations, forcing an undercapitalized issuer to buy out performing loans and either hold them in portfolio or sell them at a substantial loss would put the government at greater risk. “This is something we need to be alert to in certain cases,” the agency said. According to the report, Ginnie improperly allowed more than $49 million of single-family mortgages with terminated insurance to remain in its MBS pools for more than one year without obtaining FHA coverage. The IG warned Ginnie could be on the ...
Lenders are optimistic about a proposed rule that would reinstate FHA spot financing in unapproved condominium projects, saying this could be the spark that would jump-start the slow condo market.The proposed rules would clarify and modify certain FHA rules to kick-start condominium lending activity, and allow some flexibility in existing approval standards. Key proposals include the reinstatement of spot approvals in unapproved condominium developments and extending the effective recertification period for condo approvals to three years, rather than the current two-year requirement. Prior to 2009, spot approval allowed a buyer to use FHA financing to purchase a unit in an unapproved condo project, but the HUD approval process was expensive and time consuming. Consequently, few lenders were able to take advantage of the spot-approval program. The Department of ...
Industry groups are urging the Department of Housing and Urban Development to reconsider a supplemental proposal to require mortgagees to assign a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loan to the FHA once the loan balance reaches 98 percent of the maximum claim amount (MCA). The Mortgage Bankers Association and the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association said there are more disadvantages than benefits to the proposal. The supplemental proposal is an offshoot from a previous HUD proposed rule to codify significant changes made to the HECM program by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, the Reverse Mortgage Stabilization Act of 2013 and all other revisions in between. Both groups recommended that HUD maintain its current assignment election options rather than adopt the proposed rule. Currently, mortgagees have an option, before the ...