The average daily trading volume in agency MBS fell to $185.1 billion in May, the lowest reading of the past 17 months, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. Year-to-date, the average is still ahead of last year’s pace but not by much: $204.2 billion compared to $201.9 billion for 2016. But these are interesting times for investors as both bonds and stocks continue to rally near new highs. Earlier this week, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury fell to 2.12 percent, the lowest reading since the November election. It’s...

The spring and summer home-buying season is in full throttle and with rates falling to yearly lows, mortgage bankers should be hiring in droves. Right? Not necessarily. Top-ranked lenders such as Quicken Loans and Movement Mortgage report they continue to search for new talent, but others are being careful about their hiring plans. Employment in the mortgage brokerage sector has been...

There are three important trends in the consumer complaint space, each bearing important lessons for mortgage lenders, regardless of size or structure, according to top compliance experts. Speaking to an audience at the American Bankers Association’s annual regulatory compliance conference in Orlando earlier this week, Carol Hunley, deputy chief compliance officer at Ally Financial Services, detailed each of them and their significance for lender compliance. First, the lending environment is...

The agency servicing market grew steadily in the first quarter of 2017, as the business continued to slide toward nonbanks, a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis reveals. The Federal Reserve late last week reported that total residential mortgage debt outstanding rose 0.7 percent during the first quarter, hitting $10.330 trillion. It marked the eighth consecutive quarterly increase since the sector hit its post-crash low in March 2015 at $9.912 trillion. Most of the growth came from the agency market, although portfolio holdings – including nonbanks – were...[Includes two data tables]

The Department of the Treasury this week issued a report calling for stripping the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of its supervisory powers over federally insured banks and state-supervised nonbanks, clarifying and modifying the TILA-RESPA integrated disclosure rule, and freezing additional rulemaking in mortgage servicing. The report recommends actions and changes that can be immediately undertaken to reduce regulatory overlap, fragmentation and duplication. While some of the changes could be implemented administratively, many would require congressional action. Treasury called...

The Treasury Department this week proposed eliminating the special qualified-mortgage provision that allows Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to acquire loans with debt-to-income ratios that exceed the normal 43 percent limit for QM loans. The special treatment for the government-sponsored enterprises, known as the GSE patch, “creates an unfair advantage for government-supported mortgages without providing additional consumer protection … and inhibits consumer choices by restricting private sector flexibility and participation,” the agency said in a report on financial service regulatory reform. The report urged...

Mortgage lenders that expect to close on a pending home-equity line-of-credit near the end of this year may run afoul of the new Home Mortgage Disclosure Act rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau if the HELOC doesn’t close on time, compliance experts cautioned this week. That’s because the CFPB created a compliance gap by failing to establish a rule to guide industry conduct during the transition from the current reporting regime to the new one. At least that’s the assessment of some top HMDA professionals during a break-out session at the 2017 American Bankers Association regulatory compliance conference in Orlando this week. The crux of the problem is...

The House of Representatives last week passed sweeping legislation that would repeal or modify consumer protection provisions of the Obama-era Dodd-Frank Act, including an overhaul of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s structure and authority as well as changes to the rulemaking process followed by the CFPB and federal banking agencies. The House approved H.R. 10, the Financial Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs (CHOICE) Act, on June 8 by a vote of 233-186, along party lines. The bill was sent to the Senate, where Republicans enjoy a narrow majority and would have to win over some Democrats to get the bill through. Under the Republican bill, the CFPB would be renamed...

The House of Representatives late this week passed H.R. 10, the Financial CHOICE Act, which would undo a number of changes to the secondary market and to the regulatory landscape that were ushered in by the Dodd-Frank Act. As previously reported, among these are the elimination of the Dodd-Frank risk-retention requirements for ABS other than residential mortgages. Another provision would enable the president to remove the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency before the end of the director’s appointed term, with or without cause. It also would make...

Mortgage real estate investment trusts are expressing optimism about investment opportunities in agency MBS despite tighter spreads on credit assets, according to industry analysts at a recent mortgage finance conference in New York City. Mortgage REITs were positive on investment opportunities and believed that interest rate increases were likely to be moderate in the months ahead, said analysts with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, which hosted the conference. Industry executives, however, noted...