Secondary Market

Swann and his team wrote in a report to clients that the impasse among lawmakers as to the future of the GSEs, the fact that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been profitable since 2012, and the near recovery of most housing markets have made the privatization of the GSEs or any type of reform unlikely for the foreseeable future.

Insurer MGIC, which provides mortgage insurance through its principal subsidiary Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp., saw its stock rise 2 percent in morning trading after Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW) analysts gave the company a vote of confidence in a new report. KBW raised MGIC to “outperform” from market perform on Monday.

Fannie Mae's NPL transactions require the loan owner to market the property exclusively to owner-occupants and non-profits before offering it to investors when foreclosure cannot be prevented.

The new policies, sent in a letter to sellers and servicers, are expected it go into effect January 1, 2016, at the direction of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).

With July's total of nearly 20,000 foreclosure prevention actions, the Enterprises have now completed 3.56 million such actions since the start of the conservatorship in September 2008, according to FHFA.

According to a recent report from the FHFA Office of the Inspector General, however, the Agency's budget review and approval process has fallen short of achieving that stated purpose due to a number of factors that include late timing, cursory-level analysis, and inadequate resources.

REO inventory for the GSEs totaled about 88,000 at the end of Q2, a decline of 14 percent from the end of Q1 (about 102,000) and 34 percent from the end of Q2 2014 (134,000), according to FHFA.

For the first half of 2015, approximately 38 percent of mortgage delinquencies were brought about by job loss or some type of income curtailment, according to an analysis of mortgages guaranteed or owned by Freddie Mac.

For the first eight months of 2015, Fannie Mae's gross mortgage portfolio has contracted at an annualized rate of 12.6 percent; the only two months that saw expansion were January and March at a rate of 3.5 percent and 7.8 percent, respectively.

Warren and Capuano are trying to prevent the delinquent mortgage loans from being acquired by investors who are quick to foreclose on them. The lawmakers would rather see the loans acquired by non-profits who would be more likely to engage in the loss mitigation process with borrowers and prevent foreclosure.