The Federal Housing Finance Agency declared this week that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will finish making claims on pre-conservatorship mortgage acquisitions by the end of this year. “It is time for us to wrap up all our open issues dealing with that period and move on,” said FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco during a speech at the annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association. “I look forward to a speedy resolution of remaining claims in the coming months.” The two GSEs became wards of the federal government in September 2008. For years, lenders have complained...

Ginnie Mae remains a very good profit center for MBS issuers and investors, making government-backed lending appealing and beneficial to consumers, according to securitization experts. Government loans offer great value to lenders because they cover broader borrower eligibility than conventional loan products and lenders can execute more efficiently, said panelists at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual conference this week. The discussion focused on government loan programs – FHA, VA and Rural Housing Service – and on execution options for the loans and their mortgage servicing rights (MSRs). CMG Financial has found...

Citigroup Global Markets Realty is preparing to issue a non-agency jumbo mortgage-backed security next week, according to a preliminary term sheet provided to Inside Nonconforming Markets. The issuance would come just two weeks after Shellpoint Partners scrapped a planned jumbo MBS because of tepid investor demand. Blackstone is also offering the first securitization backed by rental proceeds from real estate owned properties and Freddie Mac is preparing its second non-agency risk-sharing transaction ...

JPMorgan Chase’s settlement with the Federal Housing Finance Agency regarding representation and warranty claims on non-agency mortgage-backed securities could prompt large settlements by other banks, according to industry analysts. Chase agreed last week to pay $4.0 billion to settle claims on $33.8 billion of non-agency MBS purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The securities were issued between 2004 and 2007 by Chase, Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual. The settlement sets a “relatively high bar” for ...

Shellpoint Partners this week pulled the plug on its second jumbo non-agency MBS issuance of the year and will instead sell the mortgages as whole loans. Shellpoint Asset Funding Trust 2013-2 was initially offered as a $308.64 million deal in September. The company then reduced the offering to a $250.85 million securitization with a number of tweaks aimed at attracting investors. In the end, the company couldn’t structure...

Lenders continue to originate non-agency jumbo mortgages, but few are likely to be securitized in the coming months due to more favorable economics for banks retaining the loans in portfolio. Longer term, many investors suggest they won’t return to the non-agency mortgage-backed security market until issuers standardize their offerings. The ABS East conference sponsored by Information Management Network last week in Miami presented a tale of two markets: jumbo MBS and everything else ...

Fannie Mae priced its first capital markets risk-sharing transaction this week, attracting even more investors than those that initially bought into a similar transaction from Freddie Mac. While non-agency mortgage-backed security investors haven’t shown significant interest in jumbo MBS recently, many are looking toward the government-sponsored enterprises’ risk-sharing deals. “There is voracious investor demand for risk-sharing,” said Randal Johnson, a director in the structured credit group at Deutsche Bank ...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s proposed “qualified mortgage” rule attaches certain conditions to QM treatment that may complicate matters for participating lenders, said attorneys with K&L Gates in Washington, DC. On Sept. 30, the Department of Housing and Urban Development published its own proposed QM rule for FHA loans. The CFPB rule takes effect on Jan. 14, 2014, and will apply to FHA loans until HUD issues a final rule. Under the CFPB rule, many FHA loans would not qualify for the rule’s safe harbor because the higher mortgage insurance premiums would make them “higher priced mortgage loans.” Thus, in order to ...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has affirmed a district court’s dismissal of a putative class action alleging that a lender improperly required FHA borrowers to buy and maintain higher flood insurance coverage than that indicated in their mortgage contracts. According to an analysis by the Washington law firm BuckleySandler, the ruling from an equally divided en banc court allows mortgage lenders to require borrowers to maintain flood insurance equal to the replacement value of their homes. In Kolbe v. BAC Home Loans Servicing, LP, No. 11-2030, 2013 WL 5394192 (1st Cir. Sept. 27, 2013), plaintiff Stanley Kolbe contends ...

Two surviving spouses of deceased reverse mortgage borrowers won their case against the Department of Housing and Urban Development after a U.S. court found HUD in violation of federal law for failing to protect the spouses from foreclosure. The court’s decision marks a turning point for surviving spouses, such as Robert Bennett of Annapolis, MD, and Leila Joseph of Brooklyn, NY, and ensures that they will be protected against eviction and foreclosure, despite the loss of their husband or wife, said Jean Constantine-Davis, a senior attorney with the AARP Foundation Litigation. In March 2011, the AARP and the law firm of Mehri & Skalet of Washington, DC, filed ...