RMBS

Joe Smith, the Obama administration's nominee for director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, said Monday that the government should continue playing a role in the mortgage market, but he left the final word to Congress.

Private placement ABS transactions have come to market in the last week backed by a range of collateral that includes auto and timeshare receivables.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) is in the market again with resecuritizations of residential and commercial real estate debt.

Legal actions tied to mortgage lending jumped by more than 40% in the third quarter based on the Mortgage Litigation Index report published this week.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) has assembled a task force of its key members to examine and issue recommendations for the future of residential mortgage servicing. Michael Berman, chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) and John Courson, MBA's president and CEO announced the trade group's move.

Ginnie Mae will join Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in requiring mortgages it purchases to be transmitted in the Uniform Loan Delivery Dataset (ULDD) standard — the set of data points and e-document formats the government-sponsored enterprises will mandate for all mortgages it purchases beginning Sept. 1, 2011.

Moody’s Investors Service sees “encouraging” signs for the emergence of a New Zealand covered bond market following a proposal from regulators for a comprehensive legal framework and the first-time issuance this year of this product.

The number of mortgages with negative equity fell nearly 2% in the third quarter from the previous quarter mostly due to foreclosures, according to a CoreLogic report issued Monday morning.The third quarter report shows there are 10.8 million single-family loans or 22.5% of all mortgages under water, compared to 11 million in the second quarter.

Anyone expecting a quick and narrow resolution of mortgage servicers' troubles from foreclosure process failures probably hasn't talked to Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, who heads the 50-state coalition investigating the industry.

Though regulators have so far been vague about what kinds of national servicing standards they hope Congress will enact next year, momentum appears to be growing behind the concept.