Secondary markets

First-quarter surveillance of U.S. commercial mortgage-backed securities and commercial real estate collateralized debt obligations suggest slow growth for CRE property markets this year.

PennyMac Mortgage Investment Trust earned $19.1 million in the first quarter, a slight decline from the prior period.

It’s not easy being president. Just ask George W. Bush or Jimmy Carter. As for the current inhabitant of the White House, he was a bit late to the game when it came to tackling the housing and mortgage crisis. He wants to fix the housing/mortgage mess and he controls (sort of) three entities that can aid in that recovery: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and HUD/FHA

House Republicans are wading back into the debate over whether to allow principal reductions on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages.

Freddie Mac began purchasing HARP 2.0 loans in January and by the end of the first quarter had acquired $5 billion of these refis, according to the company’s first-quarter securities filing.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan will testify before Congress next Tuesday regarding efforts to allow more Americans to refinance their mortgages.

The government controlled Freddie Mac posted net 'comprehensive' income of $1.789 billion in the first quarter — but then had to turn around a pay the U.S. Treasury $1.8 billion in dividends, resulting in a small true loss for the quarter.

Gleacher & Co. Securities hired two veteran MBS traders who, respectively, worked for The Royal Bank of Scotland and Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.

The aggregate value of securitized commercial real estate loans priced by DebtX climbed to 87.3% at the end of March from 86.9% at the end of February.

The message at the 2012 Regional Conference of Mortgage Bankers Associations in Atlantic City from many of the speakers at the first residential lending general session and at a roundtable hosted by National Mortgage News/Origination News was there is a lot of uncertainty regarding the future direction of the industry. And that is because it is waiting on a definition of what will constitute a qualified mortgage. Yet, attendees at the show were upbeat that the worse times are behind them.

EverBank Financial Corp. paid $350 million for the warehouse lending business of MetLife Bank, according to an amended S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Fannie Mae acquired $95.3 billion of mortgages from its seller/servicers in March, a stunning 53% jump from the month prior, and a performance a source close to the company attributed to recent guarantee fee hikes.

Loss severities on U.S. commercial mortgage-backed securities have reached 45%, according to Fitch, which said this is a point at which they could plateau.

Industry veteran Tony Renzi, who joined Freddie Mac last spring as part of a major organization at the GSE, has resigned from the company effective May 11, according to a new SEC filing.

Ally Financial, in a new public filing, finally admits that it is weighing bankruptcy protection for its struggling residential mortgage division which is facing potential additional losses of up to $4 billion.

It's no secret that there are signs of life in the 'flow' servicing market, but will these green shoots of a revival turn brown?

By now, thousands of readers have viewed our coverage (both in print and online) of eWarehouseOne, the mysterious warehouse lender that appears to have collected at least $250,000 in application and good faith checks, and doesn’t have a whole lot of lines of credit to show for it. After two months of investigating the company and talking to roughly 20 sources, we’ve come to the conclusion that the man running the show is Tom Reynolds, once listed as EVP in charge of warehouse lending. The problem is this: none of the account executives hired by the company (some of whom have left) have ever met Reynolds, though they’ve spoken to him on the phone.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency lifted an eight-year-old cease-and-desist order against the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago, which pioneered the Mortgage Partnership Program back in the 1990s.

Housing industry groups are pressing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to craft a qualified mortgage rule that shields lenders from meritless litigation and ensures access to affordable and sustainable mortgages.

Multifamily prices are getting closer to their pre-recession peak, but limited supply and favorable demographics could mean they keep climbing for some time.