Tag Archives: Repurchase Demands

In 1998, the top 10 mortgage lenders held around 40 percent of the market. By 2010, their share increased to nearly 80 percent; since then, it's dropped down to around 60 percent. Why the decrease? Because only five of the top 20 single-family mortgage originators in 2006 remain active today. So what's driving the big guys out--market cycles or market restructuring? And will the current trend of favoring smaller lenders and servicers last forever?

Bank of America has agreed to pay Freddie Mac $404 million to be released from existing and future repurchase claims on approximately 716,000 loans originated in the last decade by BofA and sold to the GSE. The payment also compensates Freddie Mac for past and future mortgage insurance-related losses on the loans, but doesn't cover loan servicing obligations or private-label securities.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has reached a $4.5 billion agreement with 21 institutional investors to settle mortgage repurchase and servicing claims on 330 residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) issued by J.P. Morgan, Bear Stearns, and Chase. The group of investors supports the arrangement, according to their legal representative, and has asked the trustees to accept JPMorgan's offer. The bank says it is appropriately reserved for this and any remaining RMBS litigation matters.

Over the past few years, lenders and underwriters revamped their standards to reduce risk, but Equifax says there's one challenge many lenders still have difficulty combating--undisclosed debt. In a recent white paper, the credit bureau published results of its research into undisclosed debt and its recommendation for how to deal with this difficult hazard. Ultimately, Equifax said, ""The results are somewhat surprising and disturbing.""

Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue to see strong profits as the housing market improves. With the release of their third-quarter results the GSEs announced they will be making substantial payments to the U.S. Treasury in December--$8.6 billion from Fannie Mae and $30.4 billion from Freddie Mac. Together, the two companies will have paid back about $185 billion to taxpayers as of December, nearly equaling the $188 billion in bailout money provided to the two mortgage financiers.

Bank of America exhibited healthy growth during the third quarter despite an expected weakening in its mortgage banking operations, according to the company's Q3 earnings report released Wednesday. BofA's third-quarter net income was $2.5 billion, a significant increase compared to $340 million reported for Q3 2012. Its consumer real estate services division, though, reported a net loss of $1 billion.

Radian Guaranty Inc., the mortgage insurance subsidiary of Radian Group Inc., has entered into a master transaction agreement with Freddie Mac which the company says eliminates its claim exposure on 9,756 delinquent mortgage loans and 4,586 re-performing loans. The agreement involves a group of 25,760 first-lien mortgages held by Freddie Mac that were insured by Radian and were delinquent as of December 31, 2011. The agreement spells out future claim payments, loss mitigation activity, and insurance coverage of these loans.

Representation and warranty costs remained elevated in the fourth quarter among top originators, though new and outstanding repurchase claims were mixed for large mortgage companies, according to a recent analysis from KBW. The GSEs continued to drive much of the new and outstanding repurchase claims, with Fannie Mae repurchases totaling $1.9 billion in Q4, down from $2.02 billion in Q3, while Freddie Mac repurchases totaled $638 million, down from $819 million, the report revealed.

As Moody's rates residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) in post-crisis years, the firm continues to harbor some concerns about the strength of some loan pools. ""The decline of the US housing market that led to investor losses exposed limitations and flaws in many aspects of the RMBS framework,"" Moody's Investors Service stated in a report authored by VPs Kathy Kelbaugh and Yehudah Forster.

While most representation and warranty guidelines for recent residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) have been substantially stronger than observed in pre-crisis transactions, according to Fitch, the ratings agency has begun to encounter some proposals that fall short of the industry's recently-enhanced standards. Fitch is a strong proponent of the American Securitization Forum's Project Restart, which created a rep and warranty framework following the housing crisis. According to Fitch, the framework offers ""a high standard that provides the most assurances about loan origination and underwriting quality."" Some of the most recent RMBS transactions the agency reviewed stray from these guidelines and are ""weak,"" according to Fitch.