Sam Khater, chief economist at Freddie Mac, suggested that interest rates on mortgages could level off soon.

By taking steps to shore up the financial standing of nonbank lenders and servicers, Ginnie Mae is providing confidence to both MBS investors and warehouse lenders.

Investors are showing strong demand for various types of esoteric ABS, including data center securitizations, whole-business transactions and deals tied to music royalties.

Mr. Cooper Group, already the largest primary servicer, increased its servicing volume by 2.8% during the third quarter while the amount of servicing outstanding grew by 0.8%. (Includes three data charts.)

Sam Valverde, acting president of Ginnie Mae, noted that Ginnie and the Department of Veterans Affairs have policies in place to prevent refis that don’t benefit borrowers and they will continue to watch for “abnormal” refi activity.

A decline in interest rates and more housing inventory helped to increase pending home sales in September.

The average estimated guarantee fee on Freddie’s new single-family business in the third quarter was 57 basis points, up 3 bps from the second quarter.

“Candidly, we have to figure out a way to get our equity price to trade where it should trade,” said Michael Nierenberg, chairman, CEO and president of Rithm Capital.

Nearly all of the loans in Provident’s MBS are for primary residences.

Applications for refis declined while demand for purchase mortgages ticked up last week.