Daily Dose

Freddie Mac has obtained an insurance policy for more than half a billion dollars under its Agency Credit Insurance Structure (ACIS) program, bringing the total of insurance coverage the Enterprise has acquired this year to $1.5 billion through seven ACIS transactions, according to announcement from Freddie Mac.

The market share of non-depository, independent mortgage companies tumbled after the Great Recession with the collapse of the mortgage and secondary markets—especially those companies that were focused on subprime lending. In 2014, the market share of independent mortgage companies rose to 47 percent for home purchase loans and 42 percent for refinance loans, the highest those shares have been at any point in the last 20 years, meaning nonbank mortgage companies have more than regained their market share they lost due to the Great Recession

Robinson contends that despite posting record losses for 2007 and the first half of 2008, shortly before the government seized control of them, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were always capable of paying their debts and were never in danger of insolvency. The complaint contends that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took a relatively conservative approach to investing in mortgages during the years 2004 to 2007, the so-called “housing bubble,” during which many institutions were not conservative where the mortgage market was concerned.

The predicted moderate economic expansion does not change the Conference Board’s outlook for housing, which is largely positive. Ozyildirim told DS News earlier in the week that, “The single family housing market seems to be heating up, despite some potential volatility. Construction companies and workers are busy while home prices and mortgage rates remain favorable.”

"Buoyed by strong employment growth, housing supply is struggling to keep pace with demand, which is driving house prices higher," Kiefer said. "Fortunately, low mortgage interest rates are helping to keep homebuying affordable for some prospective homebuyers."

HUD has announced that it is extending the deadline for reverse mortgage lenders to submit payable requests for home equity conversion mortgages (HECMs) that defaulted on or after April 23, 2015, due to unpaid property charges.

The latest STACR offering, STACR Series 2015-DNA3, is the seventh STACR debt notes offering this year of more than $1 billion by Freddie Mac. It is the 15th STACR offering since the program began slightly more than two years ago. Freddie Mac’s goal is to transfer a portion of its credit risk on single-family loans to private investors.

With July’s decline, the cash sales share has fallen year-over-year every month since January 2013, a total of 31 consecutive months, according to CoreLogic. July 2015’s reported share of 30.8 percent was a dropoff from the share of 34.2 percent reported in July 2014. As has historically been the case, REO sales made up 56 percent of cash sales in July 2015, and resales had the second highest share at 30.2 percent.

The percentage of delinquent mortgages (loans 30 days or more overdue but not in foreclosure) rose by 1.7 percent over the month in September, reaching 4.87 percent—the highest level since May 2015. This percentage represented about 2.45 million mortgages nationwide, with the monthly increase totaling about 44,000.

Wells Fargo told DS News that the reason behind the massive amount of job cuts was "the result of continuing market changes, including improvements in delinquency and foreclosure rates and reduced demand for mortgage financing."