Although the Federal Housing Finance Agency has backed away from radically reducing the government sponsored enterprises’ role in the mortgage market, some non-agency lenders believe more of the conventional market might be up for grabs if the FHFA overhauls GSE guaranty fees and loan-level pricing adjustments. There isn’t likely to be much market opened up based on loan amount; FHFA Director Mel Watt has ruled out any change in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loan limits. But the FHFA is actively engaging the industry and will be seeking formal comment on guaranty fees and LLPAs. Under current LLPAs, if a borrower has a low FICO score, low downpayment or other “risk factors,” they pay...

As reported by IMFnews, the FHFA has yet to appoint a permanent chief executive and chairman for the CSP, formally known as Common Securitization Solutions.

It appears that CashCall is getting closer to finalizing a deal to sell some of its production assets to the publicly traded Stonegate Mortgage.

There is a tradeoff between taking on more higher-risk loans and raising g-fee prices, FHFA official Bob Ryan noted, and the calculation has to take into account other players in the market, such as the FHA.

So, what’s the biggest impediment to mortgage volumes taking off this spring? According to a new poll from Inside Mortgage Finance, it’s a lack of housing inventory.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will ramp up their risk-sharing transactions significantly in 2014, and may see a somewhat expanded share of MBS issuance, under a new conservatorship plan announced this week by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The revised “scorecard” also tweaks the project to develop a common securitization platform. The FHFA said it wants each of the two government-sponsored enterprises to structure transactions that transfer some portion of the credit risk on $90 billion of residential MBS this year, three times the level they were directed to reach last year. Both companies appear to be well on the way to meeting this requirement. Freddie late last month announced...

“FHFA hasn’t dropped the ball on the issue,” said one MI consultant who has met with the agency over the topic. “They now know that the [GSE reform bill] is dead and they want to make sure they get it right.”

Neither Fannie Mae nor Freddie Mac is changing its quality-control review policies for now.

Sources contend that three other top executives also have left Nationstar Mortgage. At press time, Nationstar’s media department had not returned telephone calls and emails on the matter.

An ambitious, bipartisan mortgage reform bill that would wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while repurposing the Federal Housing Finance Agency limped out of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. The measure is expected to die waiting for a floor vote that will never occur. The committee voted 13 to 9 to report out a revised version of S. 1217, the Housing Finance Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act.