Mortgage bankers likely won't see any official proposals to revamp servicing compensation until late summer, Government National Mortgage Association president Ted Tozer said Friday morning.
In an interview with National Mortgage News, Tozer said regulators – including both the Federal Housing Finance Agency and HUD – "are trying to find a happy medium."
FHFA and HUD, in consultation with the FDIC, OCC, and the mortgage industry are exploring changing the minimum servicing payments offered to processors of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and GNMA product.
Those minimums currently stand at 25 basis points for GSE loans and 44 bp for GNMA product (FHA/VA). Various proposals have surfaced that would cut those minimum payments to as low as zero.
Tozer said the "happy medium" refers to "how much you drop it [the servicing fee]."
Mortgage bankers who have spoken with regulators about the issue believe a servicing payment of zero is no longer on the table, but that doesn't mean the minimum will not be trimmed or changed in some fashion or another.
Fannie Mae, which won't talk about its position on MSR payments, is leaning toward a flat fee "for service" while Freddie Mac and GNMA are open to some type of reduction, but nothing major, industry sources close to the discussions said.
Tozer would not comment on where GNMA stands right now, but said he is familiar with proposals that would leave "skin in the game" for servicers.
On Thursday representatives from several servicing advisory firms met with regulators in Washington at FHFA's headquarters to discuss the issue. More meetings between the industry and regulators are planned for the weeks and months ahead, Tozer said.
