Wholesale correspondent programs remained a major ingredient in mortgage originations during early 2012 despite the high-profile exit of two of the sector’s top players, according to a new ranking and analysis by Inside Mortgage Finance. Correspondents accounted for 30.9 percent of new mortgage originations during the first quarter of this year, generating an estimated $119.0 billion in new production. That was down 9.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2011, but it was actually up from the first three months of last year. It was, how-ever, the lowest share of overall...(Includes four data charts)
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Freddie Mac announced this week that investors in certain of its mortgage-backed securities would see an unexpected increase in prepayment speeds after the government-sponsored enterprise resolved “certain contractual matters” with one of its seller/servicers. Bank of America was the issuer of the $1.29 billion of affected MBS pools, which were issued between July 2009 and June 2011, according to an Inside Mortgage Finance analysis. Freddie Mac said the total amount to be repurchased is $330 million, which would represent a small fraction of the $8.1 billion in outstanding...(Includes one data chart)
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One of the trickiest challenges presented to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as part of its project to harmonize the mortgage disclosures consumers receive will be the settlement disclosure, a top official at the CFPB indicated recently. The settlement disclosure “is where we’re in a bit of a difficult situation, because Congress, al-though they directed us to combine the Truth in Lending Act and Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act disclosures, did not amend the underlying statutes,” said Benjamin Olson, managing counsel in the office of regulations at the CFPB, during a webinar sponsored last...
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Congress may be no closer to solving the problem of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than it was when the two government-sponsored enterprises were put in conservatorship in 2008, but many observers say the capabilities of the two GSEs should be preserved and improved. “Energy spent trying to get rid of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is a waste,” said Sean Dobson, the CEO of Amherst Securities Group, at the American Securitization Forum Annual Meeting this week in Washington. The GSEs still have sizable infrastructure for effective securitization, and “it would be a shame to take all of that and throw it away,” he...
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Even as the Federal Housing Finance Agency deliberates writedowns of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages, the agency has agreed to allow the government-sponsored enterprises to participate in a California program that applies principal reduction in modifying distressed loans. The FHFA has confirmed Fannie and Freddie’s participation in the California Housing Finance Agency’s Keep Your Home California Program, a $2 billion foreclosure prevention effort established under the U.S. Treasury’s Hardest Hit Fund. Earlier this month, state officials announced they are dropping the requirement from the...
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A costly difference of interpretation between the Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp. and Freddie Mac over a pool insurance dispute has prompted the mortgage insurer to file suit against the government-sponsored enterprise and its regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Filed earlier this month in the U.S. District Court of Milwaukee, where the company is based, the legal dispute concerns differing readings of the “aggregate loss limit” for insurance policies MGIC provides on 11 pools of Freddie loans. The aggregate loss limit is about $535 million higher under Freddie’s...
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