FHFA

The nascent market for private U.S. mortgages is teetering on the brink of collapse as the coronavirus crisis imperils years of work to lessen the government's role in home lending.

At issue is whether the U.S. should step in now to save nonbank mortgage servicers to head off damage to the housing market.

FHFA head Mark Calabria and his FSOC counterparts need to sit down with the Treasury and fashion an emergency capital plan for the GSEs.

If rising flood waters were the right analogy last time around, this time a tsunami is probably a more accurate description of the wave of delinquencies about to come.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote in a letter to the Treasury secretary that the Financial Stability Oversight Council should create a liquidity facility to deal with a flood of forbearance requests brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

Mark Calabria needs to be working to secure a Fed facility for servicer advances and to support, not denigrate, smaller servicers, the Mortgage Bankers Association said.

The coronavirus relief legislation could result in private mortgage insurers having to hold more capital, a B. Riley FBR analyst report said.

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mark Calabria said a virus-induced financial crisis might give rise to more delinquencies and foreclosures than the 2007 subprime mortgage meltdown.

Mortgage servicers need direction from federal agencies on how to implement the forbearance plans called for in the CARES Act, according to the Community Home Lenders Association.

The impending wave of loan delinquencies because of the coronavirus hurt private mortgage insurer earnings, but the companies will still have sufficient capital, a Keefe, Bruyette & Woods report said.