Mortgage topics don’t always make the President’s State of the Union speech, but President Obama Tuesday night may touch on the issue of credit availability and whether the government has “gone too far.”
The cost of mortgage compliance was a topic making the rounds at the recent ABS Vegas show in Nevada. Attendees, of course, wanted to know who might pay for all the new added costs.
“It’s nearly impossible to get the information to the right person to vote on it,” said Bill Moliski, a managing director at SG Capital and former managing director at Redwood Trust.
The non-agency MBS market is stuck in "limbo until we know where the GSEs are going,” said Steve Abrahams, head of securitization and MBS research at Deutsche Bank Securities.
Comments made Wednesday by the Treasury Department’s point man on GSE reform, Michael Stegman, did not go unnoticed by employees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Hoping to jump start the non-agency MBS market, the Structured Finance Industry Group plans to establish a limited number of options on various rep and warrant issues.
The lender also recently formed a real estate investment trust, Parkside Mortgage Trust. Matt Ostrander, Parkside’s CEO, said the REIT plans to issue a non-agency MBS later this year or in 2015.
The hunger for GSE speculation is also causing some investors to buy Fannie/Freddie common which has been rising of late, but not by much. However, one GSE watcher believes that buying the common, "is a fool’s game."