A housing crisis in America? Maybe the Russians can help...

In a somewhat uncommon move, Progress increased a planned issuance after presale reports on the deal were already published.

It was the slowest agency refi market since the third quarter of 2014…

PennyMac and Credit Suisse are revising two master mortgage repurchase agreements to increase the lender’s funding capacity for new loan originations and purchases of mortgage servicing rights, the company disclosed in a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In June, PennyMac agreed to revised terms of its master purchase agreement to increase temporarily the maximum committed purchase price to $943 million from $700 million. The amended agreement allows...

This spring, Fannie provided Invitation Homes with a $1 billion financing vehicle, which gave the real estate investment trust a cheaper cost of funds than tapping the MBS market.

Walter Investment, the parent of Ditech, is considered a turnaround situation...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency proposed minor revisions to its single-family and multifamily housing goals for 2018 through 2020 to push Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to continue helping low-income borrowers. The FHFA acknowledged that Fannie and Freddie are challenged when it comes to making credit available for the low-income market. Both government-sponsored enterprises have fallen short of the market in the low-income and very low-income purchase goal almost every year since 2013, the regulator noted. Most of the single-family goals would remain...[Includes one data table]

An expert in the commercial real estate debt market is calling on industry participants to “reset the business to where it used to be” to stop the commercial MBS market from shrinking any further. In a recent blog, Rick Jones, partner and co-chair of Dechert’s finance and real estate practice, noted CRE securitization, or at least the conduit part of the business, continues to dwindle. It has fallen from $800 billion in outstanding principal balance in 2007 to approximately $400 billion currently, with a run rate of about $50 billion annually. The downward trend is...

The U.S. House of Representatives was a relatively busy place last week, with a handful of measures related to flood insurance passing the House Financial Services Committee, and a few other, small-scale, individual mortgage reforms being introduced. Among the bills passed by the committee was H.R. 2875, the “National Flood Insurance Program Administrative Reform Act of 2017,” introduced by Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-NY. It would make certain administrative reforms to the NFIP to increase fairness and accuracy and to protect the taxpayer from program fraud and abuse. The legislation passed on a 58-0 vote. Also favorably voted on was...

Mark Filler, who departed “fix and flip” lender Finance of America Commercial early this spring, said he has amassed $1 billion of commitments from private equity investors and plans to enter the market once again, but this time as a buyer of properties. He also expects to launch a new business to provide advances to real estate agents based on their commissions, and then – if successful – roll out a similar program to fund mortgage brokers. He anticipates paying referral fees to mortgage companies that send business his way. “My goal is...