Commercial banks and savings institutions made money on their mortgage banking activity during the fourth quarter, but not that much. [Includes one data chart.]

Mortgage lenders that deliver loans into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities continued to face relatively few repurchase demands from the two government-sponsored enterprises last year. [Includes two data charts.]

A roundup of brief news items about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

To paraphrase Mark Twain: Rumors of HARP’s death have been greatly exaggerated. At least that’s the finding of a recent report by structured finance analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch who looked the impact similar programs will have on the GSEs’ credit-risk transfer programs.

The uniform MBS is scheduled to launch in just over three months, but there is still some confusion about how it will affect investors in the to-be-announced market. Earlier this month, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and the Investment Company Institute, in a joint letter, urged the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department to clarify certain diversification requirements under the single security initiative.

The Federal Home Loans Banks’ combined net income for the fourth quarter fell to $791 million, an 8.7% decline from the fourth quarter of 2017. Year-over-year, net income rose slightly to $3.56 billion in 2018. But this apparent stability masked dramatic swings elsewhere on the income statement. [Includes one data chart.]

Fannie Mae last week announced that it would begin marketing its 10th sale of reperforming loans. Citigroup Global Markets will handle the marketing.

A working paper released by the National Association of Realtors at a conference in Washington, DC, this month makes a persuasive case that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be restructured as strictly regulated, shareholder-owned utilities. Perhaps more important, the paper establishes an effective format for evaluating other proposals for GSE reform.

Despite a slow fourth quarter, 2018 turned out to be the most profitable year since 2013 for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And, although only a fraction of the size of the GSEs’ single-family business, multifamily remained a bright spot. [Includes one data chart.]

Mel Watt violated ethics rules as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency by attempting to “coerce” a senior manager into a relationship by suggesting he could help her in getting an executive post, according to a just-released report from the agency’s inspector general.