Fannie Mae has announced that the company, through its lender and housing partners, provided $5.9 billion in investment to the multifamily rental housing market for the first half of 2010. “In today’s constrained market, Fannie Mae and our Delegated Underwriting and Servicing (DUS) lender partners remain diligent about providing much needed liquidity and stability,” said Kenneth Bacon, executive vice president of Fannie Mae’s housing and community development division.Read more

The CRE Finance Council has sent a letter urging support for HR 5823, "The United States Covered Bond Act of 2010," which will be considered today by the House Financial Services Committee. The Council applauds the bill's sponsors, Reps. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Paul Kanjorksi (D-PA) and Spencer Bachus (R-AL), for their efforts to provide a statutory framework that would create a covered bond market in the United States.Read more

Generation Mortgage Company has announced the availability of a new jumbo reverse mortgage loan for homes valued up to $6 million. Currently, the only fixed-rate jumbo reverse loan offered industry-wide for higher-valued homes, Generation Mortgage's Generation Plus loan product caters to a presently underserved consumer segment, seniors owning homes appraising higher than $1 million.Read more

This month, we had a chance to chat with Steven A. Milner, president and chief executive officer of US Mortgage Corporation d/b/a Mortgage Concepts, a company he founded in 1994. Milner has been a retail loan officer since 1981.

He was born in Los Angeles, and at the age of 12, moved to the East Coast and his family settled in New York. They moved around the state a bit, moving from the Bronx, and then on to Bayside and eventually, out to Long Island, settling in Brentwood.Read more

The commercial real estate market is experiencing its worst liquidity challenge in almost 20 years, and it is vital that Congress take action to prevent a deepening crisis, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) said in its Monday, May 17th testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.Read more

First California Mortgage Company (First Cal) has announced that it has received $30 million in new warehouse funding from Flagstar Bank. This raises to $110 million the amount of new warehouse funding that First Cal has raised since Jan. 1, 2010. The credit facility will enable First Cal to fund agency, non-agency and Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) loans. “Flagstar Bank’s commitment to expand warehouse lending is good news for consumers and our business partners,” said Christopher K.Read more

The Commercial Mortgage Securities Association (CMSA) has announced its support of the introduction of covered bond legislation brought forth by key members of the House Financial Services Committee – Capital Markets Subcommittee Ranking Member Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Chairman Paul Kanjorski (D-PA), and Ranking Member Spencer Bachus (R-AL).Read more

Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) has announced the introduction of the United States Covered Bond Act, with support from Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski (D-PA) and Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Spencer Bachus (R-AL) as leading co-sponsors. This legislation aims to help facilitate a robust covered bonds market in the U.S. to add liquidity and certainty to our nation's capital markets.Read more

By investing in communities the real estate finance industry has played a critical role in the American economy. The turmoil of the last couple of years in the industry has, however, threatened this critical responsibility.Read more

The Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae) has announced that it guaranteed more than $38.6 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) in October. For the first 10 months of calendar 2009, Ginnie Mae provided nearly $376 billion of liquidity to the secondary market, compared to $219 billion for the first 10 months of 2008. Ginnie Mae also reported that in September, 3.48 percent of the single-family loans in Ginnie Mae-guaranteed securities were 90-days or more delinquent, down slightly from 3.70 percent in August and down from the 3.59 percent in December 2008.Read more