Freddie Mac

The company is still searching for someone to fill the roll on a full-time basis, but the $600,000 annual salary cap may limit the candidate pool.

Some applaud the agency's recent delay of the mandatory compliance date for a new Qualified Mortgage standard. Others say it leads to more uncertainty for lenders, opens the door to additional changes and enables some companies to loosen their underwriting.

The agency issued a proposal moving the compliance date for the Qualified Mortgage rule revamp to October 2022.

The $16.9 billion in issuance marked the biggest annual number seen since the government-sponsored enterprise reconstituted its risk sharing program in 2013.

The company purchased $1.1 trillion of single-family mortgages and $83 billion of multifamily loans during 2020.

Investors were also reacting to the inauguration of Joe Biden and uncertainty over additional fiscal relief, Freddie Mac’s Chief Economist Sam Khater said.

The Biden administration could encourage the FHFA to increase the caps or restore exclusions for certain types of loans, which would boost overall volumes.

Despite mortgage rates expected to rise modestly in 2021, a bolstered Biden administration stimulus package and COVID-19 vaccination efforts bring promise for economic recovery.

Deals, trends and research in structured finance and asset-backed securities for the week of Jan.7-14

Mortgage rates, whose movements until now had not reflected gains in the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield, rose 14 basis points this week, according to Freddie Mac.