RMBS

The National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) leading indicator of future home sales rebounded in May after an unexpected downdraft in April.

For the week ending June 22, the Refinance Index declined 8% to 4955 from 5386 - its highest level since April 2009. Over the previous two weeks, the index jumped 20% largely as a result of a surge in the Government Refinance Index as pre-June 2009 borrowers took advantage of a drop in mortgage insurance premiums on streamlined refinances that became effective June 11. Also, as a percent of total application activity, refinance share slipped to 79% from 81% previously.

Fitch Ratings said that uncertainty surrounding the Dodd-Frank Act, particularly in terms of the qualified residential mortgage (QRM) definition, has led many traditional RMBS issuers to postpone their issuance plans.

After a long winter of price declines, Standard & Poor's (S&P) finally reported that its 20-city house price index (HPI) turned up in April.

Freddie Mac reported a rebound in lending activity in May after a significant drop in April.The secondary market agency reported Tuesday that it purchased $30.7 billion in residential mortgages from lenders in May, up 19% from April.

A loan officer for a Florida mortgage company was sentenced to more than four years in prison for pleading guilty to committing wire fraud in a $9.2 million mortgage fraud scam.

Rating agency presale reports came out last week on the latest deal from Redwood Trust, the only consistent issuer/aggregator of nonagency/Jumbo securitizations. These show it is continuing to work toward perfecting its mix of inherent Jumbo risks and mitigating factors.

Major servicers are in various stages of setting up their systems and training personnel to provide struggling homeowners with a “single point of contact” (SPOC) that they can rely on as they go through the loan modification process, according to a new report by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).In April 2011, OCC directed 12 major mortgage servicers to clean up their shops after receiving numerous complaints from borrowers and congressmen about slow processing times, lost paper work and the difficulty of reaching anyone at the servicing company who could answer their questions.

Activity and flows in MBS were influenced primarily by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting this week.

Among the strongest industry rationales for a national mortgage servicing settlement was that it would break the legal stalemate over a huge backlog of delinquent loans. Banks would give principal writedowns to eligible borrowers and confidently foreclose on the rest, allowing the housing market to move on.