As a number of shareholder lawsuits against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac hang in the balance, a new administration offers reasons for some to be optimistic on the cases coming to a close and the Treasury’s sweep of the government-sponsored enterprises’ profits coming to an end. During a Jan. 18 call hosted by Investors Unite, legal experts weighed in on the outlook for GSE shareholder cases just days before the inauguration. Plaintiffs have been arguing that a government bailout of the GSEs and the subsequent Treasury sweep was unnecessary and illegal. “As GSE shareholders, we are...

The residential MBS market is expected to be healthy this year, according to some ratings service analysts. But the new president is the big unknown, market participants say. According to analysts at Fitch Ratings, the rating outlook for U.S. RMBS they rate is auspicious, as they expect asset performance trends to stay positive thanks to support from solid, if somewhat uneven, gains in home prices. “Although a number of legacy transactions continue to face negative rating pressure due to declining loan counts and tail risk, rating upgrades outnumbered...

Credit quality for the loans backing unique warehouse-funding securitizations from Jefferies Funding remains strong, according to Moody’s Investors Service. One of the risks was that weaker collateral could be included in the transactions as time passed. The $225.0 million Station Place Securitization Trust 2016-1 received Aaa ratings from Moody’s last February and a $210.0 million 2016-3 transaction issued in May garnered an with Aaa rating. The rating service evaluated the deals recently as the 2016-1 securitization is set to pay down next month. “To date, there has been...

With President-elect Donald Trump set to take office and Republicans in control of Congress, trade groups representing banks reiterated calls for revisions to standards for qualified mortgages. Banks are pushing for QM status to be applied to any mortgage held in portfolio, even if the loans have characteristics that would otherwise make them non-QMs subject to greater liability. In a letter this month to leaders of Congress, Rob Nichols, president and CEO of the American Bankers Association ...

The Trump administration is expected to put a temporary freeze on the 25 basis point cut in FHA annual premiums that is scheduled to take effect Jan. 27. One industry source noted: “On Jan. 20, President Trump will be issuing an executive order that freezes all past actions over a certain period of time. The FHA premium reduction gets swept into this.” Sources told...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit last week gave PHH Corp. the green light to weigh in on the legal arguments the Justice Department made late last year in support of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s petition for an en banc rehearing of its dispute with the lender. The appeals court did so over the objections of the CFPB, and with 11 of the 12 judges in agreement and one not participating. PHH had argued that it ought to be able to respond to the second of two government arguments in favor of the review. Privately, some industry insiders thought...

Legislative reform of the government-sponsored enterprises doesn’t appear to be a high priority for Republican lawmakers, but President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to reduce the corporate tax rate could inadvertently prompt some GSE reform activity, according to industry analysts. As of the end of the third quarter of 2016, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had a combined $53.80 billion in deferred tax assets. The DTAs result from differences between the carrying amounts of existing assets and liabilities under generally accepted accounting principles and their respective tax bases. The DTAs are...

Thanks to stellar fourth quarter MBS issuance – coupled with higher interest rates at Dec. 31 – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are likely to report their best quarterly earnings of 2016, money that will go directly into the U.S. Treasury. According to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance this week, the general consensus among observers is that the two government-sponsored enterprises will post a combined profit north of $5.5 billion. In 2016, the two guaranteed...

While many in the mortgage industry wait for the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether to rehear the arguments of the CFPB in its wrangling with PHH, the plaintiffs in State National Bank of Big Spring, Texas, et al. v. Lew, et al. have stepped back onto the legal stage at the district court level. Specifically, “Plaintiffs respectfully move [the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia] to hold a status conference at its earliest convenience to determine how this case ... can be most efficiently adjudicated in light of the CFPB’s petition for en banc review of the panel decision in PHH Corp. v. CFPB,” State National Bank and its parties asked the appeals ...

The American Bankers Association sent a letter to the leaders of Congress recently, urging adoption of a bipartisan regulatory relief package that would provide unspecified reform of the CFPB and address an expanded definition of a qualified mortgage. When it comes to the bureau, the ABA urged sensible regulation by restoring “balance to the regulatory process, including Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reform,” and by focusing on promoting both economic growth and safety and soundness. On the QM point, the organization asked lawmakers to “reform mortgage regulations that have raised costs and prevented banks from flexibly serving their customers without enhancing consumer protections or safety and soundness. Most crucially, deeming loans held in portfolio as qualified mortgages will expand safe and ...