Nonbank mortgage lenders accounted for a hefty 43.2 percent of single-family mortgages securitized by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the first quarter of 2014, according to a new analysis of loan-level data by Inside Mortgage Finance. Nonbanks delivered $55.8 billion of home loans to the government-sponsored enterprises during the first three months of 2014. That was down 17.7 percent from the previous quarter, but overall GSE business was down even more, by 29.1 percent. Both subsets of the nonbank segment – larger companies that ranked among the top 25 lenders overall and smaller mortgage companies – claimed...[Includes one data chart]

Declaring this week that “inaction is simply not an option,” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said that the Senate’s pending bipartisan housing finance reform bill represents “the single best chance” to overhaul the mortgage-finance market this decade. Speaking in New York at an event co-hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center, Donovan said the Obama administration is squarely behind the legislative proposal by Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Ranking Member Mike Crapo, R-ID. “Despite its imperfections, does...

Sources tracking the bill’s progress believe that if those votes cannot be lined up in time, then next week’s markup could be delayed by a few days.

In January, newly sworn-in FHFA Director Mel Watt officially delayed a GSE guaranty fee increase that had been scheduled by his predecessor Edward DeMarco.

The score card was the brainchild of former Acting FHFA director Edward DeMarco, who is retiring from the agency at the end of April.

As for details, a spokesman for the company said Ellie isn’t talking about the topic at this time. In an email exchange with IMFnews, mortgage technology consultant Tony Garritano of Progress in Lending called the whole episode “very bizarre”…

While Congress is halfway through its two-week Easter/Passover recess, political pressure continues to build against the Senate’s bipartisan housing finance reform legislation, leading to growing doubt whether the scheduled markup of the bill will occur as scheduled later this month.

A new report by Fannie Mae finds that second-home mortgage market activity is in the midst of a strong rebound, representing a small yet significant corner of the mortgage market.

ICYMI: Late last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released its guide to completing its integrated disclosure forms under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and the Truth in Lending Act.

The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs held more than 10 hearings last year in advance of the housing-finance reform bill introduced in March by Sens. Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Mike Crapo, R-ID. However, the bill appears to be far from perfect, as industry participants are angling to make suggestions for changes as the committee plans a markup at the end of this month. Perhaps the biggest outstanding issue with S.1217 is that even though the Johnson-Crapo bill calls for the preservation of the to-be-announced market, the capital-markets execution contemplated under the new housing-finance system might not be compatible with TBA transactions. The Johnson-Crapo version of S. 1217 doesn’t have...