Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM) today will launch its third Benchmark REMIC(TM) issue. The company will offer $1.0 billion of Benchmark REMIC Trust 2007-B1 as a Guaranteed Maturity Class (GMC) with a final maturity date of December 28, 2020. (more…)
I started doing mortgage lending in 1996 with a sub-prime lender. It turned out this was the dawn of a liquidity crisis that struck the sub-prime secondary market through early 1998. I was only a loan officer and didn’t understand what happened to a loan after it was sold.
Later in my career, I spent 4.5 years working in secondary marketing of mortgages and better understood what had happened in 1998 and how the market has changed. Here’s my take on the future of sub-prime.
1) The number of mortgage lenders doing ONLY sub-prime lending are contracting (more…)
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) released the 2007 conforming loan limits this afternoon and announced what many industry experts expected, no change. The OFHEO had previously issued a statement on November 15th saying they would not lower conforming loan limits for 2007 from the $417,000 limit set in 2006. (more…)
Speaking before Wall Street today at the New York Stock Exchange, Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh expressed continued concerns about inflation.
“Inflation, though down somewhat from its level earlier this year, remains uncomfortably elevated. Financial market prices imply that inflation will continue its gradual but persistent downward track during the forecast period,” claims Warsh.
For mortgage bankers this means (more…)
Andrew McCormick was the SVP Portfolio Transactions for Fannie Mae during which time period Fannie Mae was later to be found guilty of “inappropriate accounting and inproper earnings management”. While Mr. McCormick’s role is somewhat secondary to the charges made against Fannie Mae by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, he was clearly aware of the methodology being employed to report higher earnings. (more…)
CHICAGO, Oct 23 (Reuters by Al Yoon) – Stricter oversight of lenders selling payment-option and interest-only mortgages will reduce Wall Street’s role in the business and allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to focus on recouping lost ground, an industry panel said on Monday. Regulatory guidance on such “exotic” mortgages will crimp production of the loans that are used as collateral for so-called private-label mortgage-backed securities, Michael Marriott, a managing director at Credit Suisse, said on a Mortgage Bankers Association panel in Chicago.
“The regulatory guidelines are definitely going to dampen (more…)
