Christopher Whalen

The big threat to the mortgage banking community comes from any future Fed sales of mortgage-backed securities.

The Secured Overnight Financing Rate is a concept in search of an actual forward market, writes Whalen.

If put into force, the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s plan will severely impact the working capital and profitability of IMBs, and reduce volumes in the industry, Whalen argues.

This regulatory development is both good news and bad news, depending upon where you happen to sit in the mortgage process.

COVID loan forbearance championed by progressives has created a new, permanent class of distressed borrower, Whalen writes.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau seems to have been turned loose by Chopra in a redux of the bad old days under former director Richard Cordray, when the agency inflicted punishment on the mortgage industry often without any basis in fact, writes Whalen.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency should consider allowing small depositories — those defined by regulators to be below $10 billion in total assets — to again make use of structured transactions for seasoned, performing loans, writes the chairman of Whalen Global Advisors.

Last week, the world of mortgage servicing got an unpleasant surprise. Cenlar FSB, the nation’s largest subservicer of residential mortgages, was hit with a consent order by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency alleging “unsafe and unsound” banking practices.

Kind Lending founder Gary Stearns told the National Association of Mortgage Brokers that the wholesale channel always feels the pain first in a slowdown and that changes were coming to the industry after a remarkable run, writes the chairman of Whalen Global Advisors.

The biggest issues facing the mortgage industry involve public policy and all of them feature a political narrative that is ill-informed and largely at odds with market realities, Whalen writes.