If. Sen. Franken has his way, the MBS rating system will change. Meanwhile, top executives at Impac Mortgage clean up.

Investors have stepped up to the plate, buying new large bulk MSRs put out for auction by Interactive Mortgage Advisors.

Although 2013 will turn out to be a decent year in terms of residential production, next year could be quite ugly.

Investment funds are continuing to salivate over mortgage servicing rights.

Ginnie Mae officials have moved beyond whether they should consolidate the agency’s two MBS programs to how they should do it, but it remains much less certain that similar proposals to restructure the Fannie/Freddie market will take root. The newer Ginnie II MBS program has become significantly more popular than the original Ginnie I security, both in terms of new issuance and the outstanding supply of securities. Speaking at the Mortgage Bankers Association secondary market conference in New York this week, Ginnie President Ted Tozer said...

The retained mortgage portfolios of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continued to decline through natural attrition during the first quarter of 2013, falling by 4.9 percent from the previous quarter, according to an Inside MBS & ABS analysis of earnings reports released by the two government-sponsored enterprises this week. Fannie and Freddie held $1.13 trillion in mortgage assets as of the end of March. With heavy refinance activity, the rate of decline in early 2013 was faster than it had been; GSE holdings were down 13.6 percent from year-ago levels. There was...[Included one data chart]

Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s multifamily businesses hold “little inherent value” and would be less viable absent the government guarantees the two government-sponsored enterprises currently enjoy, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. In a new report, the agency also noted that the sale of the GSEs’ multifamily businesses would yield “little or no value” to the U.S. Treasury or to taxpayers, while at the same time it could be a huge disruption to the commercial real estate markets. “The new ‘stand-alone’ businesses would primarily depend...

Ginnie Mae President Ted Tozer said the agency wants to phase out the Ginnie I MBS program.

The first GSE risk sharing transaction is likely to be a senior-subordinate structure and be issued as a credit-linked note.

Although it's unlikely that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will engage in principal reductions anytime soon, a new report from CBO says it could do some good.