A hefty increase in mortgage refinance activity flooded into the agency mortgage securities market during the third quarter, lifting total production at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by 32.9 percent over the previous three-month period. A new ranking and analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance shows... [Includes three data charts]
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The federal government passed up an opportunity to test market readiness to reclaim a piece of the jumbo mortgage market last week and extended the current conforming loans – created two years ago as a temporary move to shore up battered financial markets. President Obama last week signed into law an extension of... [Includes one graph]
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Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac late last week released stern letters requiring servicers to review their foreclosure operations as Bank of America joined the ranks of other major mortgage servicers caught in the snare of “robo-signing” affidavits used in the foreclosure process. BofA, the largest mortgage servicer in the market, announced...
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The cat-and-mouse game between federal regulators and aggressive settlement service providers may soon end as changes under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act radically alter the regulatory and business environment for joint ventures and other affiliated business arrangements. How those changes will play out...
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Bank of America, which has spent more than two years wrestling with the wholesale mortgage business it inherited from Countrywide, announced this week it was finally and completely exiting the wholesale broker channel. Although most of the country’s mega-lenders have been significantly reducing their broker business, BofA is the first...[Includes one graph]
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Investigations of publicly available mortgage data for signs of illegal discrimination have been compromised by inadequate information, but the expansion of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act reporting requirements could shed more light on the subject. Studies of mortgage discrimination using conventional methods may...
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Opponents and supporters of residential mortgage private transfer fees have taken their conflict to the U.S. House of Representatives, where dueling legislation introduced late last month would ban or facilitate, respectively, the controversial fees. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, and two colleagues introduced the Homeowner Equity Protection Act of 2010, which would prohibit...
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