Merchant Capital, an affordable housing lender based in Carmel, IN, announced in late December that it used Freddie Mac’s first official non-LIHTC forward commitment to secure financing for a $19.7 million workforce housing development in Rochester, MN.

Last August, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said they were ending their pilot programs in the single-family rental market after the Federal Housing Finance Agency determined that the market could get along just fine without the GSEs’ help. But that didn’t stop Freddie from issuing a whitepaper last month that takes a deep dive into the rapidly changing world of SFR.

Fannie Mae has revised the maximum number of allowable days for routine foreclosure proceedings in 20 jurisdictions. For servicers in 16 states plus New York City, the number of days has been increased, while in three states the permitted time frame has been decreased.

The country’s fourth-largest subservicer, Mr. Cooper, will purchase IBM’s mortgage servicing subsidiary Seterus. The deal, expected to close in the first quarter of 2019, will give Mr. Cooper servicing rights to $24 billion in GSE mortgages as well as subservicing contracts for another $24 billion in loans. In addition, Mr. Cooper will acquire Seterus’ mortgage servicing platform.

Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting early this week became the second member of the Trump administration to simultaneously run two federal agencies when he took charge as acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The slow-motion acquisition of mortgage insurance giant Genworth Financial by real estate and insurance conglomerate China Oceanwide got a significant nudge forward, when the Delaware insurance commissioner last month gave its final approval for the purchase.

George W. Haywood, a successful private investor and friend of former President Obama, stepped down from the board of Fannie Mae last month.

In a report released late Thursday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau mulled over the future of the so-called “GSE patch,” which exempts qualified mortgages at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from the CFPB rules limiting debt-to-income ratios to 43 percent.

Acting Ginnie Mae President Michael Bright handed in his resignation this week, creating yet another vacancy in the Department of Housing and Urban Development hierarchy, and sparking discussions on what his departure might mean for reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Redwood Trust is set to issue the first prime non-agency MBS the market has seen in more than a month. Issuance has all but grounded to a halt after October, but industry analysts expect more volume to flow following the Redwood deal.