Secondary Market

Concerned by the risk that new regulatory infrastructure may duplicate existing financial rules, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to the Treasury Department and Federal Trade Commission on Monday outlining recommendations to minimize overlap between the former and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Addressing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, the letter called for a Memorandum of Understanding in order to clarify and empower the FTC and CFPB.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency released research on this week indicating a greater-than-expected drive to high conforming jumbo mortgages (HCJMs) by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, raising questions about the long-term impact their buying spree may have on private markets. According to the research, the government-sponsored enterprises walked away this year with approximately 55 percent of HCJMs in 10 of the nation's high-cost counties, a number totaling approximately 50,000 mortgages worth over $30 billion.

In a statement released Thursday, Transwestern announced the appointment of Sunjay Arya as transaction manager at its Houston headquarters. We are excited about the growth of our multifamily team, both locally and nationally, said Ed Cummins, SVP of multifamily services.

Recent analysis by the Mortgage Bankers Association revealed that commercial and multifamily mortgage debt remained relatively fixed in the first quarter of 2011, down by only 0.1 percent from the fourth quarter.

MountainView Servicing Group, a subsidiary of MountainView Capital Holdings, announced Monday that it will serve as the exclusive advisor for a $188 million Ginnie Mae servicing portfolio. The portfolio is comprised entirely of fixed-rate mortgage loans, 98.1 percent of which are Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans, with 99.9 percent retail origination and a weighted average interest rate of 5.95 percent.

On Monday the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released a statement announcing the nomination of E.J. Burke, a senior executive and director at KeyBank Real Estate Capital and Corporate Banking Services, as its vice-chair. Burke has more than three decades of experience in the mortgage banking business, At KeyBank, he also served as head of real estate capital markets, presiding over its commercial mortgage division as managing director.

The top three U.S. banking regulators have issued guidelines that would require comprehensive stress tests every year for lending institutions with assets totaling $10 billion or more. The Federal Reserve, FDIC, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency proposed guidance material that would test a bank's capital preparedness and lending ability under national economic duress. The evaluation would also appraise the integrity of the banks' payout plans for shareholders.

Jefferies Group, Inc., a global securities and investment firm, announced the appointment of Richard Ford as its new managing director in the company's Real Estate Investment Banking Group on Wednesday. Ford joins Jefferies as an executive with nearly 15 years' experience in real estate investment banking. He was previously at Bank of America Merrill Lynch as managing director of the firm's real estate investment banking group.

The Federal Reserve released a report on Wednesday that suggests a "steady pace" of economic growth throughout most of the country, with intermittent spots of economic activity slowing in four of its 12 regional districts, namely Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta, and Chicago. The central bank's regularly published Beige Book indicated that construction and real estate markets continued to show widespread weakness. No district seemed to see an increase in home prices.

The nation's largest association for mortgage bankers has issued a statement praising a last-minute extension of the comment deadline for Dodd-Frank's controversial risk-retention rule and its Qualified Residential Mortgage (QRM), which opponents charge will make loans more expensive for homebuyers. The Mortgage Bankers Association says the rule will have a "profound long-term effect" on the mortgage financing industry, which is good reason to give stakeholders more time to understand its full scope.