Christopher Whalen

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.

There are people creating a lot of unrealistic scenarios about market risk.

When new lending volumes start to recede, even with the FOMC’s actions, the shoals of credit and operational risk lurking just beneath the surface will emerge, columnist and analyst Chris Whalen says.

How we resolve millions of delinquent mortgages due to COVID is the only question that matters.

With the onset of COVID and the reaction by the Federal Reserve Board and other agencies, market pressures have reduced credit availability significantly.

The only rational strategy for holding MSRs is to be very aggressive on protecting the servicing assets via loan recapture. This is one of the chief reasons that banks have been willing to give up their share in lending and servicing as they collapse back to retail-only lending strategies.

This proposed Libor replacement is an imaginary, backward-looking benchmark dreamed up by the economists at the Fed with no discernible market.

The FHFA director’s move this week to impose an “adverse market fee” of 0.5% on most refinanced mortgages will shift billions out of the hands of American consumers and into the hands of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — and their private shareholders.