Servicing

The Treasury Department said Monday morning it will begin the "orderly wind down" of its remaining $142 billion agency mortgage-backed securities portfolio from emergency programs put in place in 2008 and 2009.

When it comes to Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac’s future and the administration’s options for this, one securities group last week was pushing for a guarantee that could be priced in a manner similar to what is seen in the derivatives market.

When Congress debated a bill several years ago to create a new regulator for the government-sponsored enterprises, many parts were controversial, but nearly all lawmakers agreed that the agency should be independently funded and not subject to the appropriations process.

The dollar amount of second lien mortgage debt continued to fall in the fourth quarter with roughly $620 billion in loans outstanding nationwide, a 9% decline over the past 12 months, according to survey figures compiled by National Mortgage News.

JPMorgan Chase chairman Jamie Dimon recently sat down with analysts at Citigroup Global Markets and told them what many smaller players in the mortgage business have believed all along: that a 20% downpayment definition on the 'qualified residential mortgage' test will benefit the nation's megabanks.

The Independent Community Bankers of America and Freddie Mac have renewed their eight-year-old alliance, extending it through March 2012.

Ally Financial Inc., which hopes to go public this year, has agreed to sell $1.25 billion of bonds related to excess mortgage servicing rights.

A Fitch report released Friday morning suggests the growth rate for CMBS loan transfers into special servicing continues to slow, but some property sectors are doing better than others.

As state and federal officials struggle to reach a global settlement with the largest mortgage servicers over problems in the foreclosure process, regulators have grown frustrated with the lack of leadership on their side, saying no one is making an effort to corral the multitude of agencies involved.

A powerful Republican congressman late Thursday introduced a GSE reform bill that would push Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of conservatorship after two years and fully privatize them at the end of five.