Secondary Markets and Securitization

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If only the U.S. Treasury had a magic wand to ensure that the dozens of recommendations released last night in its long-awaited reform proposals for housing finance would become a reality; in that case, one could expect real-time results in the quest for an end to GSE conservatorship and the strengthening of the FHA. Instead,…

The saga over whether to include a controversial “preferred language” question on the new redesigned Uniform Residential Loan Application (URLA) continues. Last week, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) changed course yet again and decided to remove the language preference question from the redesigned URLA. Instead, the question will be moved to a separate, optional…

Freddie Mac is an outlier among the three primary secondary market investors with its mid-month investor reporting cycle. In an effort to standardize the marketplace, Freddie Mac is joining Fannie Mae and Ginnie Mae by shifting its investor reporting cycle to the beginning of each month. In this regard, Freddie Mac is implementing the following changes: (i) the investor reporting cycle will run from the first day of each calendar month to the last day of such month; (ii) Freddie Mac is encouraging daily loan-level reporting, with reporting of at least one loan level-transaction detailing activity submitted no later than the 15th calendar day of each month (or next business day) (the “P&I Determination Date”); (iii) servicers will report the actual principal received and the forecasted scheduled interest based on unpaid principal balance reported at the end of the current one-month period; (iv) Freddie Mac will draft principal and interest from the servicer’s custodial account two business days after the P&I Determination Date; (v) on the fifth business day following a payoff, Freddie Mac will draft payoff proceeds, provided such payoff was reported within two business days of the payoff date, subject to certain requirements; and (vi) Freddie Mac will process and settle loan modifications on a daily basis.

Freddie Mac has released several bulletins outlining the transition (2016-15, 2017-4, 2017-15, and 2018-14), summarized in the following timeline:

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Mayer Brown’s Lauren Pryor will speak at the Mortgage Bankers Association Whole Loan Trading Workshop in Houston, Texas on Thursday, November 8. Lauren will participate on a panel entitled “Getting Deals Done,” and will address legal considerations arising in connection with the purchase and sale of residential mortgage loan portfolios.

The ABA Business Law Section is holding its 2018 Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas on September 13-15, 2018. The Meeting will offer over 80 CLE programs and many more committee meetings and events, and will feature several Mayer Brown panelists.

Financial Services Regulatory & Enforcement (FSRE) partner Laurence Platt will participate in a panel…

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the “agencies”) have developed new uniform instruments for use with Texas home equity loans beginning January 1, 2018. Those forms will reportedly be available on the agencies’ web sites as that date approaches. In addition, the agencies are imposing a temporary moratorium on purchasing Texas home equity loans while lenders…

Is it possible for an investor to participate in the economics of agency residential mortgage servicing rights without being an approved holder of the servicing rights? Acquiring excess servicing fees is one way that investors are exploring to accomplish this objective.  Mayer Brown partners Larry Platt and Jon Van Gorp wrote an article for Bloomberg…

When, if at all, should a mortgage lender or servicer be required to conduct business in a language other than English when the consumer has expressed a preference that language? The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is seeking input on actions Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could take to promote access to mortgage credit for…

On the theory that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cannot remain in conservatorship forever, on April 20, 2017, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) issued a proposal for reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, titled “GSE Reform: Creating a Sustainable, More Vibrant, Secondary Mortgage Market” (accessible at the MBA’s GSE Reform web page). While the ultimate fate of any GSE reform effort in the current political environment is uncertain, there is at least a consensus that the Congress and the Trump administration should undertake such an effort, and each has promised to do so.  The MBA’s proposal is intended to provide a voice for the mortgage banking industry in that process.

The proposal includes a mixture of changes to the GSE system as it exists today, and maintenance of existing processes and structures the MBA believes work well. It proposes a replacement or conversion of the GSEs with “Guarantors,” which would guaranty mortgage backed securities (MBS).  The Guarantors would be structured as “private utilities”, meaning that they would be privately owned, but established through a government charter for the primary or exclusive purpose of providing the MBS guaranty, and heavily regulated.  Think of a privately owned electric company, that is granted the right to participate in the electricity market, on the condition that it complies with various regulatory requirements and oversight, including rate approvals.  The proposal even quotes from a paper regarding investor-owned electrical utilities.  The expectation, as stated in the proposal, is that the Guarantors would be “low-volatility companies that would pay steady dividends over time, not growth companies that aggressively seek to expand market share or generate above-market returns.”  Guarantors’ MBS guaranty would then be supplemented with an explicit government guaranty of the MBS, which would only be used if a Guarantor failed, and would only be used to support the MBS, not the Guarantors and their private investors.

The following is an outline of key elements of the MBA’s proposal, divided into elements reflecting changes to the current system, and those reflecting continuation of the current system in a similar form.…
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Financial services providers, marketplace lenders and secondary market purchasers doing business in the state of New York can breathe at least a temporary sigh of relief this week.   Controversial changes proposed to the state’s Licensed Lender Law included in a pair of companion budget bills were dropped when these bills were amended on Monday.  Assembly Bill 3008 and Senate Bill 2008, as introduced in the legislature on January 23, 2017 would have expanded the scope of consumer and commercial loans, and types of business activities, subject to licensing by the New York Department of Financial Services (the “Department”) under the Licensed Lender Law. If enacted into law, these proposed amendments would have triggered new licensing obligations for companies doing business in the state, potentially reaching marketplace lenders, other Fintech companies and secondary market purchasers.
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