Secondary

Fannie Mae will add an appraisal waiver option for mortgages in regions that its Duty to Serve program designates as high-needs rural areas, but only if home inspections are completed instead.

The CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are stepping down because the job they were hired to do — return the GSEs to profitability — is done. But attracting top-flight candidates to lead the mortgage giants into a new phase may not be easy.

Moody's sees $10.7 billion of securitized commercial mortgages at risk, Morningstar just $1.49 billion; both say loans in Freddie Mac K-deals account for a significant portion of exposure.

Brian Brooks, the mortgage giant's general counsel, is leaving this week to head the legal team at Coinbase.

A former Federal Home Loan bank president argues that the system should limit its exposure to risky nonbanks.

Accessing a mortgage applicants' data from a direct source goes a long ways toward shortening the origination process, according to 96% of mortgage underwriters responding to a recent CoreLogic survey.

While new-home construction and sales should rise in the next 18 months, next year's mortgage origination volume estimate was cut slightly as the economy is expected to slow down soon, said Fannie Mae.

Commercial mortgage-backed securities delinquency rates are likely to continue to decrease for the rest of the year, as new issuances outpace maturing loans and precrisis loans continued to get resolved by special servicers, Fitch Ratings said.

A decade after the credit crisis, investors are returning to where it all began. The mortgage sector, blamed in large part for the near-collapse of the global financial system, is now seen by many as a high-quality market forged by fire.

The agency’s director has been under pressure to quit as he is investigated for sexual harassment allegations, but an agency spokesperson says he still plans to testify at a housing finance hearing slated for later this month.