RMBS

Mortgage application activity dropped 12% in the week ending Oct. 19 as mortgage rates inched higher.

Just two firms showed up at the auction: Nationstar and Ocwen Financial, which is working with Walter Investment, according to industry advisors tracking the deal.

SEC chairwoman Mary Schapiro criticized the prevailing pay model for ratings agencies on Tuesday.

With BofA out of the correspondent market for almost a year, and with other aggregators paying paltry sums for the ‘servicing released premium,’ many mid-sized FHA lenders want to become direct issuers.

It appears that other bidders will make a run at Residential Capital Corp. on Tuesday and Wednesday when the firm is auctioned off by a federal bankruptcy trustee.

Speakers harped on two topics in particular: the qualified residential mortgage rule and what they see as the unfair advantage that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac still enjoy over the private-label RMBS market.

The fiscal cliff being faced by our government at the end of the year is probably the most chilling macro-economic risk, ABS East panelists said.

Fannie Mae president and CEO Timothy Mayopoulos said the GSE recognizes the outsized role it is playing in the mortgage market but is working on trying to attract more private capital to the business, he told attendees at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual convention in Chicago today.

Lender Processing Services said today it has added two supplemental data modules to enhance McDash, its loan-level database.

Speakers at one panel of Information Management Network’s ABS East conference think the industry will come around to this field’s potential of socially responsible investing.