Christopher Whalen

Regulators should create a simple liquidity formula that allows the secondary market to function rather than using depository rules as a model, writes the head of Whalen Global Advisors.

The more challenging operating environment for lenders means that expense management is coming back into vogue, writes Whalen.

The now-interim leader of the Federal Housing Finance Agency would give the mortgage industry much-needed stability following Calabria’s calamities, writes the head of Whalen Global Advisors.

The plan "is part of a larger democratic attack on home ownership that includes an increase in the taxes on capital gains as well as an end to 1031 exchanges for the sale of property," writes the head of Whalen Global Advisors.

For a lot of IMBs facing shrinking backlogs and falling secondary market spreads, the attraction of hitting a bid and taking the easy way out via an acquisition may become irresistible, writes Chris Whalen.

“Federal Housing Finance Authority Director Mark Calabria’s decisions to date are conservative and imply a slow death for the GSEs and IMBs operating in the conventional market,” analyst Chris Whalen writes.

And there are some brawls on the field affecting the direction of business for the rest of this year.

Both in terms of interest expense and the sheer cost of dealing with consumers, the mortgage industry is out hundreds of millions of dollars due to this unfunded mandate from Congress, analyst Chris Whalen says.

If new housing policy initiatives are not adopted by Congress, the Biden Administration may seek to push the GSEs into receivership, which would damage the conventional market, columnist and analyst Chris Whalen says.

Public agencies led by the Federal Reserve often stretch the definition of “necessary and proper” to the breaking point when seeking to fulfill public mandates, columnist Chris Whalen argues.