Citing improved conditions for legacy non-agency mortgage-backed securities, the Federal Reserve this week auctioned off $1.33 billion in non-agency MBS acquired from American International Group. Information on the winning bids will be made public in three months but analysts suggest that...

American consumers have their own plan for winding down the government-sponsored enterprises: they’re refinancing less and showing little interest in borrowing to buy a new home. New business volume at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac plummeted by 21.3 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010 to... [Includes three data charts]

In what may be an omen of a deeper slide of volume in the months to come, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw their issuance of new mortgage-backed securities drop 21.4 percent in the first quarter of the year from the prior period, the latest data from the Inside Mortgage Finance GSE MarketScope show...[includes one full-page chart]

Private mortgage insurers continued paying MI premiums to captive reinsurance entities sponsored by mortgage lenders in 2010, but the payment flow declined further in a business arrangement that is gradually winding down. A new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of annual private MI regulatory filings reveals... [Includes one data chart and one graph]

Banks and other major providers of home-equity financing continued to back away from the market in the final months of 2010 while performance trends generally weakened, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of call report data. Banks, thrifts and credit unions held...[Includes two data charts]

Standard & Poor’s maintained its ranking as the top rating service in the MBS and ABS market in 2010, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS ranking and analysis. S&P rated 78 percent of the non-agency MBS issued last year, up sharply from its 51 percent share back in 2009. While total non-agency MBS production rose by just 5 percent in 2010, S&P’s business increased 63 percent, the largest increase in... [Includes one data chart]

The Mortgage Bankers Association has announced David Stevens, currently the assistant secretary for housing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and commissioner of the FHA, will take over as MBA president and chief executive officer after John Courson leaves the association June 1. The AARP filed...

Many stakeholders are still in the dark with unanswered questions despite efforts by senior staff attorneys of the Federal Reserve to explain the complex provisions and issues arising from a final rule on loan originator compensation. Paul Mondor and Nikita Pastor, attorneys with the Fed’s Consumer and Community Affairs Division, which wrote...

Dissent threatens to split a coalition of federal agencies and 50 state attorneys general over a proposed settlement with major mortgage servicers over improper and abusive servicing practices. As federal agencies and state regulators prepare to meet with mortgage servicers for the first time next week, their unity appeared to fray ...

Mortgage lenders that are still using captive reinsurance should give this business tool a second look in the wake of a tentative $34 million class-action settlement between Bank of America’s Countrywide unit and Pennsylvania borrowers. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit gave...