There was no surprise about why. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae securitized a total of $41.71 billion of refinance loans in October, down 22 percent from the previous month.

The bipartisan Senate blueprint for secondary mortgage market reform includes several key provisions designed to facilitate small-lender access when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are no longer around.

Look who has a bigger piece of the mortgage servicing pie: nonbanks that do not fall under the purview of the Fed, FDIC and other regulatory agencies.

Standard & Poor's rated $11.65 billion of non-agency MBS issued through the end of September.

Michael Heid, president of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, said more clarity on reps and warranties would help loosen residential credit.

Among the nation’s top five lenders in 3Q, Quicken suffered the largest volume decline on a sequential basis. Wells Fargo was a close second.

A total of $33.16 billion of commercial MBS – including agency MBS backed by multifamily mortgages – were issued during the third quarter of 2013, a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis reveals.

The refrain from bank management was virtually unanimous: mortgage production dropped significantly and gain-on-sale margins narrowed. Although mortgage servicing right values continued to climb, that doesn’t always translate into improved earnings on that side of the business.

California was the biggest source of private MI loans for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but the state doesn’t dominate the GSE insured market the way it does in other measures.

Although the credit characteristics of Fannie/Freddie purchase mortgages have remained fairly consistent over the year, there were some signs of loosening.