Team Thayer Property Servicing

Fannie Mae   announced on Thursday  the completion of another risk sharing transaction as part of an ongoing effort to reduce risk to the taxpayer by increasing the role of private capital in the mortgage market. This transaction is the fourth in Fannie Mae's Credit Insurance Risk Transfer ( CIRT ) series, and third since the start of 2015. In the CIRT series, credit risk for a pool of loans is transferred to a panel of reinsurers. The latest transaction, named CIRT-2015-3, included international reinsurers for the second time in four transactions, according to Fannie Mae. The transaction became effective on August 21, 2015. "As the leading manager of single-family residential credit risk in the industry, we are focused on building a safer, sustainable housing system and our CIRT deals help these efforts," said Rob Schaefer, VP for credit enhancement strategy & management. "Reinsurers seem to understand and appreciate our approach to managing credit risk ...

Fannie Mae has introduced HomeReady™ mortgage, our enhanced affordable lending product. HomeReady is designed for creditworthy, low- to moderate-income borrowers, with expanded eligibility for financing homes in designated low-income, minority, and disaster-impacted communities. HomeReady will be available later this year, with details to be released in late September. Key HomeReady features include: Accessible and sustainable financing  up to 97% LTV for a home purchase with no first-time buyer requirement. Flexible sources of funds can be used  for the down payment and closing costs with no minimum contribution required from the borrower's own funds for 1-unit properties. Underwriting flexibilities  include an  innovative new feature that supports extended family households  by considering income from a non-borrower household member as a compensating factor in Desktop Underwriter® to allow for a debt-to-income ratio above 45% up to 50%. Required homeo...

Despite recent market volatility, economic growth in the second half of the year is expected to improve, according to data released by Fannie Mae on Wednesday. Fannie Mae's  Economic and Strategic Research (ESR) Group  found that consumer spending and other solid domestic fundamentals are predicted to be key drivers of the rest of the year economic growth. “Our forecast for the year is largely unchanged despite recent market volatility. Fundamentals are positive, suggesting potential for some improvement in the fourth quarter,” said Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae’s chief economist. Various data reports over the last month reveal positive economic activity despite stock market volatility, Fannie Mae explained. According to the research and the Bureau of Labor Statistics job report, consumer spending rose in July and August, while full-time employment exceeded its pre-recession peak. “On balance, growth in the second half of the year is expected to come in higher, albeit ...

Via: DSNews.com Economic growth in the second quarter fell short of July expectations, presenting a less promising outlook for the rest of the year, according to  Fannie Mae’s August 2015 Economic and Housing Outlook . Although the government revised higher economic growth for the first quarter, the disappointing performance of second quarter growth and less optimistic prospects for the current quarter put the full-year 2015 growth outlook at 2.1 percent—the same as in Fannie Mae's prior forecast. The upward revision to first quarter growth by the federal government was offset mostly by a drop in nonresidential investment in equipment and structures. Housing, consumer spending, and government spending are likely to be the largest drivers of growth this year, according to the outlook. Housing data was mixed in June, but all main indicators increased during the first six months of the year compared to the same period last year. This supports Fannie Mae's expec...

From DS News: Consumer attitudes toward the real estate market slid down in August due to economic concerns, Fannie Mae  reported in its newly-launched  Home Purchase Sentiment Index  (HPSI). In August 2015, the HPSI fell 0.5 points from July to 80.8, Fannie Mae said. The sentiment level is also down from the peak reached in June 2015 of 84.7 and the index is up 5.3 points from August 2014. “Consumer attitudes toward the current home selling climate have slid back to their April 2015 level, contributing to a slight decline in the August HPSI reading relative to its four-year high, reached two months ago,” said Doug Duncan, SVP and chief economist at Fannie Mae. “Expectations of rising mortgage rates and increasing concerns in the last six months about the direction of the economy seem to be weighing on consumers’ assessment of the housing market." "Expectations of rising mortgage rates and increasing concerns in the last six months abo...

Freddie Mac  has announced that as part of the periodic review, state foreclosure timelines have been extended in 34 of 55 jurisdictions including Oregon  for all foreclosure sales completed on or after Aug 1, 2015. The temporary suspension of state foreclosure timeline compensatory fee assessments in the District of Columbia, New York (including New York City), and New Jersey has been extended from June 30, 2015, to December 31, 2015, according to Freddie Mac. The Enterprise originally announced the temporary suspension in the  Single-Family Seller/Servicer Guide Bulletin 2014-19.  The temporary suspension and the extended foreclosure timelines recently announced will be discussed in Freddie Mac's October 2015 Guide Bulletin. Freddie Mac extended state foreclosure timelines as follows as part of the periodic review. The length of time is measured in calendar days, and the number of days here refers to the maximum number of allowable days between the due da...

Fannie Mae's Economic, Strategic & Research Group  has pointed out on multiple occasions that housing market growth has been slowed by tepid growth of household income. In a  new analysis released Monday , the Fannie Mae ESR Group announced that homeowners underestimating their home equity may also be a factor in weighing down housing markets. The commentary was written by Steve Deggendorf, Director of Business Strategy for Fannie Mae's ESR Group, and Professor James A. Wilcox of the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkley. The  National Housing Survey  from Fannie Mae contains data that suggests that homeowners who are underestimating how much equity they have in their homes may also be underestimating in other areas, such as how large of a downpayment they could make with that equity; their chances of qualifying for a mortgage, assuming they need a large downpayment; and their opportunities for selling their house and buying another...

The  J.D. Power   2015 U.S. Primary Mortgage Servicer Satisfaction study  released Thursday found that servicers are spending too much time and resources focusing on at-risk customers, negatively impacting satisfaction for the majority of their customers. "While servicers must be prepared to work within the confines of industry regulations, they must also effectively satisfy customers whose expectations regarding technology and personal service are rapidly changing," the survey said. "To meet these challenges and remain competitive, mortgage servicers need to understand and implement key best practices that have the greatest potential to reduce or prevent problems, contain costs, and create positive customer experiences that improve brand perceptions and minimize oversight risk." At-risk customers, those that J.D. Power defines currently behind in their mortgage payments or concerned about keeping current during the next year, represent only 15 percent o...

Add caption Fannie Mae  is now providing an enhanced single-family loan performance dataset in order to offer greater transparency in advance of the Enterprise moving to an actual loss framework for the Connecticut Avenue Series (CAS) risk sharing transactions,  according to an announcement  from Fannie Mae on Wednesday. Features of the enhanced dataset include information on credit performance up to, and including, property disposition. The credit information the new dataset provides includes event dates, the costs incurred by the credit event, and recovery proceeds that Fannie Mae receives. Fannie Mae estimates it could move to the actual loss framework  for the CAS transactions as soon as the fourth quarter this year. "Proactively providing this research data is an important step to prepare the market for our move to an actual loss structure for CAS deals later this year and supports market participants in further modeling the credit risk of Fannie Mae...