Finance

This year's sluggish spring home buying season led to generally softer mortgage-related second quarter results at Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and PNC Financial Services Group, but First Republic Bank bucked the trend.

Strong demand for business and multifamily loans, combined with double-digit growth in wealth management revenues, more than offset rising expenses.

Mortgage fees at the nation’s biggest home lender declined by a third in the three months ended June 30 to the lowest in more than five years.

The collateral includes both QM and non-QM loans; however, certain loans are designated as QM even though the borrower’s DTI may be above 43%, due to a temporary exemption for GSE-eligible loans.

The $109.3 million CLEAN 2018-1 is also the first deal to be marketed as a Rule 144A transaction under securities regulation making it available to wide base of institutional investors.

Optimal Blue is expanding its reach in the secondary mortgage market by acquiring Resitrader, a whole-loan trading marketplace that has integrations with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

A Fannie Mae test to handle the private mortgage insurance process for lenders may raise concerns that it's going outside the scope of its secondary market mission. But the effort reflects its mandate to explore new credit-risk transfer alternatives, a company executive said.

Despite available home equity shooting up in the first quarter, the share of total equity withdrawn by borrowers hit a four-year low, likely due to an increase in interest rates, according to Black Knight.

The Royal Bank of Scotland is paying $20 million to settle an investigation by the Illinois attorney general related to the bank's marketing and sale of residential mortgage-backed securities.

With better-than-expected performance of the underlying mortgages, Fitch Ratings cut its loss projections for seasoned government-sponsored enterprise credit risk transfer deals.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac enjoy considerable advantages because of their lower cost of capital and significant government subsidies. But with some conforming loans, the private market is finding a way to compete.

The deal is designed to improve capital ratios and reduce risk at the Seattle company.

Commercial and multifamily mortgage debt outstanding grew $44.3 billion during the first three months of 2018, the largest first-quarter gain since before the Great Recession, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Ditech Holding Corp. is considering selling itself, just over four months after the lender emerged from bankruptcy protection.

Lauren Hedvat, Angel Oak's managing director of capital markets, said that the rising non-qualified mortgage volume in the market has expanded the number of third-party origination loan packages for purchase.

Impac Mortgage Holdings will sell up to $600 million of non-qualified mortgage loans to Starwood Property Trust over the next 12 months that will be securitized.

Most mortgage lenders and banks do not maintain a comprehensive vendor management strategy, exposing institutions to increased compliance risk, according to a recent survey.

An appeals court has rejected claims by a Washington state housing finance agency that the National Homebuyers Fund is limited to operating in California.

CoreVest American Finance’s next offering of rental bonds is backed by homes that are older and smaller than any of its previous transactions, according to Kroll Bond Rating Agency.

Startup Block66 is using blockchain to create a mortgage audit trail for fraud prevention purposes and also plans to enable trading of securities lenders can use to increase their liquidity.