Mortgages

Numbers fell across the board, with private-label and portfolio loans declining most.

Raising the capital gains tax and code changes could have more of an impact on the public debt market than rising interest rates, according to a panelist at the Urban Land Institute's Spring event.

Most of the activity covered vacant and abandoned properties or commercial loans, according to Attom Data Solutions.

It’s getting easier to close bigger loans for higher-priced properties, but credit is expanding slower for first-time buyers.

The total number of loans in this category dropped 11 basis points from week to week according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Meanwhile, the amount of unpaid balance in forbearance dropped almost 23% since the start of the year, a separate report from Black Knight found.

While the product was hard to find after the start of the pandemic, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s recent changes to Appendix Q are giving a pair of large wholesalers the chance to offer it as a qualified mortgage.

Fannie and Freddie's regulator says the companies must comply with the new Qualified Mortgage standard by the summer, while the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has extended the deadline to 2022. The conflicting timetables have stoked uncertainty in the market.

The company aims to use the additional capacity to get its non-qualified mortgage business back to producing $125 million per month, and anticipates more purchases of mortgage servicing rights, representatives said in its Q1 earnings call.

Short-term late payment rates rose again and later stage delinquencies remain at elevated levels compared to those prior to the pandemic, the Mortgage Bankers Association said.

Hedge accounting will align Fannie’s reporting with competitor Freddie Mac, and will address a mismatch between the recorded value of financial instruments used to offset interest-rate volatility on mortgages and the loans themselves.

Kerry Killinger, former CEO of Washington Mutual, says the asset bubbles and increased consumer debt that contributed to his company's failure are reappearing.

Deals, trends and research in structured finance and asset-backed securities for the week of April 23-29

The West Palm Beach, Fla.-based lender sees an opportunity for even more growth after its deal to acquire a servicing portfolio from Texas Capital Bank.

Only $89 billion of the $362 billion in new single-family volume came from purchase mortgages.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is dismissing claims that loose monetary policy has led to rising home values and shrinking inventory and insists that the market is buoyed by creditworthy borrowers and investors.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has moved ahead with an earlier proposal to postpone the full adoption of the qualified-mortgage ability-to-repay rule, citing a need to maximize borrowers' credit access.

The modifiable templates are a follow-up to a similar notification the organization created in 2019 for lender use.

However, conditions for commercial mortgages overall worsened slightly due to persistent concerns in the hotel and office sectors, a Moody’s Investors Service report found.

While government protections currently shield most borrowers and delay process timelines, a growing backlog is likely to hit some areas of the country worse than others.

Thanks to a series of government measures, the pandemic did not cause the massive wave of distressed debt flooding the market that many expected, but certain property types remain vulnerable.