Ginnie Mae’s latest guidance raising the minimum servicing spread will have little impact because most servicers already retain well above the minimum requirement, according to analysts with Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.
Concerned with the increasing number of nonbank lenders in the mortgage market and tight liquidity conditions, Ginnie Mae has started developing stress tests for its largest issuers.
Ginnie Mae will not be able to conform its pooling requirements to the VA interim final rule on cash-out refinancing because doing so would be contrary to the provisions of the Dodd-Frank reform act, the agency noted.
Ginnie Mae this week barred loanDepot from securitizing VA loans in Ginnie Mae I and multi-issuer pools as part of its efforts to curb loan churning and rapid prepayments.
An outline for housing finance reform released late this week by Senate Banking Committee Chair Mike Crapo, R-ID, looks a lot like the last gasp reform proposal released in 2018 by Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, the now retired chair of the House Financial Services Committee. Among other things, the proposal puts Ginnie Mae firmly in control of the government guarantee business.
The FHA’s Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund is generally healthy but for its Home Equity Conversion Mortgage program, according to the latest FHA audit of the MMIF. In its 2018 report to Congress this week, the Department of Housing and Urban Development had good and bad news regarding the financial condition of the insurance fund. The good news is that the economic value of the MMIF, which backs the FHA’s single-family loan programs, increased to $34.7 billion in fiscal 2018 from $26.7 billion a year ago. Total capital resources rose to $49.2 billion from $40.9 billion during the same period. For the fourth consecutive year, the fund exceeded its statutory capital reserve ratio of 2.00 percent. The ratio rose to 2.76 percent in 2018 from 2.18 percent last year. Premium reductions, had they been in effect, would have reduced the fund’s economic net worth and dropped its capital ratio, industry ...
This week, Ginnie Mae issued an all-participants memo dictating new standards for firms seeking to become issuers, including the stipulation that applicants submit to a corporate credit evaluation. Ginnie said the financial exercise will be “similar to those employed by credit rating agencies.” The evaluation will determine whether an applicant is qualified to be an issuer or whether additional criteria should be imposed even if the basic standards are met. Applicants that rely on a subservicer arrangement will be scrutinized even more. The bulletin also notes that, effective immediately, the agency is implementing new notification requirements for MBS issuers engaged in “certain subservicer advance or servicing income agreements, which do not require prior Ginnie Mae approval, but can impact an issuer’s ongoing liquidity position and financial obligations.” While Ginnie currently permits subservicers to advance ...
Increasingly worried about the financial condition of its largest nonbank issuers amid declining market conditions, Ginnie Mae in late October shot off a liquidity letter to 14 companies, asking them to develop contingency plans. The identity of the firms was not revealed to Inside FHA/VA Lending, but it’s no secret which companies rank among the top echelon of issuer/servicers. The five largest nonbank Ginnie MBS servicers as of Sept. 30 are PennyMac Financial Services, Lakeview Loan Servicing, Freedom Mortgage, Quicken Loans and Mr. Cooper. According to the letter, a copy of which was obtained by this publication, Ginnie wants the companies to develop strategies to right-size their operations. One of the agency’s goals is to lay the groundwork for financial stress tests that all issuer/servicers eventually must meet. Ginnie expects to sit down with the executive management teams of the ...
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