Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae issued a combined $41.95 billion of collateralized mortgage obligations backed by single-family MBS during the second quarter, according to an analysis and ranking by Inside MBS & ABS. Agency CMO issuance was down 17.2 percent from the first three months of the year, with Freddie taking the biggest hit – a 30.9 percent drop in production. Ginnie had the smallest quarterly decline, 5.1 percent. On a year-to-date basis, all three agencies are...[Includes one data table]
Relatively stable pricing and fairly healthy returns are giving mortgage reinsurers hope for a more robust market, according to a new analysis from Standard & Poor’s. Reinsurers seeking respite from a deteriorating property casualty reinsurance sector have found mortgage reinsurance a promising business diversification and source of growth – at least for now, said the rating service. However, reinsurers coming late to the feast might find...
The volume of purchase mortgages being originated isn’t as strong as it could be because of the amount of home sales completed solely with cash, according to economists at Freddie Mac. The cash share of home sales is declining, but it remains well above historic levels. The economists projected that about 6.2 million homes will be sold this year. With the cash share of home sales around 20 percent, Freddie projects that $1.38 trillion in purchase mortgages will be originated this year. If the cash share was at the norm of 10 percent, an additional $172.0 billion in purchase mortgages would be originated in 2017, according to the government-sponsored enterprise. Before the financial crisis, about 10 percent of home sales were...
The wholesale-broker market saw a surge in origination volume during the second quarter of 2017, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance. All three primary-market production channels recorded big gains in the second quarter, but mortgage brokers posted the biggest increase, a 35.1 percent jump in first-lien mortgage originations to an estimated $50.0 billion. Most of the top wholesale funders in the sector reported similarly big increases in production. One reason the broker share of originations rose in the second quarter was...[Includes four data tables]
Loans originated on or after Oct. 1, 2017, are eligible for new high loan-to-value streamlined refinance programs being rolled out by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And one analyst said despite more investor exposure to defaults, he views the programs as a good move in the event home prices begin to trend downward. A year after the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s initial announcement about the streamlined refi program, the regulator set the eligibility date and provided more program details last week. “The eligibility date was...
One lobbyist told Inside Mortgage Finance this week he believes that Watt eventually will strike a deal on the issue with Treasury, but he was uncertain how it might play out.
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