MBA cites competition from GSEs' new low downpayment programs, Senators point to improvements in the FHA's Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund.

The increase in the number of mortgage loan originators with state licenses was attributed to increased access to warehouse credit and less exposure to regulation than big banks.

Two real estate investment trusts that have focused their efforts on residential MBS recently announced plans to enter the commercial MBS market. The moves come as issuance of residential MBS has been subdued since the financial crisis while issuance of commercial MBS activity has been soaring in recent years. PennyMac Financial Services announced this month that it formed PennyMac Commercial Real Estate Finance. The business will focus on loans that finance multifamily and other commercial real estate with a typical value of under $10 million. PennyMac said it plans for its REIT, PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust, to acquire and securitize the commercial mortgages. “The opportunity in this market is...

On the supply side, there were $5.63 trillion of single-family MBS guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae outstanding at the end of September.

Non-cash financing was used on 72.4 percent of home purchases in November, based on a three-month moving average.

Lenders funded an estimated $20 billion of new home-equity lines of credit during the third quarter, a 17.6 percent gain from 2Q, according to IMF.

Loan Care Servicing, an affiliate of Black Knight Financial, subserviced $110.0 billion at Sept. 30, up 47.4 percent from a year ago.

The Merrill borrowers tend to have strong equity positions: the original average combined LTV on the collateral is 54.9 percent.

Scavone was hired by the company in January of 2014.

Meanwhile, the FOMC indicated it will continue to reinvest principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and MBS.