One large fixed income investor is working with clients now to make sure they’re prepared to invest in the new single security when it rolls out next summer. Western Asset Management is advising investors to consider aggregating their mortgage concentration and exposure limits for the uniform MBS that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will issue in the to-be-announced market.
Certain potential changes could materially affect origination volume and determine the government-sponsored enterprises’ direction going forward, according to analysts. One of those changes could have a significant impact on the FHA market. Wells Fargo Securities analysts recently looked at three potential developments in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac sphere and evaluated their effects on the broader mortgage market. Two of those potential changes – loan limits and guarantee fees – are controlled directly by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, while the third relates to the temporary GSE qualified-mortgage exemption, or “QM patch,” which could affect the FHA market. All three factors loom over the mortgage landscape as the FHFA expects a new director in January 2019, who is likely to be more right leaning and could shift the focus back to shrinking the ...
Eric Kaplan of the Milken Institute: “I don’t think the non-agency market is ready to absorb the market that’s taken away from the GSEs without some significant signaling in advance.”