In roughly 10 business days, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – which guarantee half of all mort-gage debt in the U.S. – will run out of capital unless their regulator at the Federal Housing Finance Agency does something about it.
Members of the House Financial Services Committee this week approved a bill that would sus-pend Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac contributions to the Housing Trust Fund if the government-sponsored enterprises don’t pay dividends to Treasury. The panel approved the bill on a partisan vote of 33 to 27.
The Supreme Court of the United States recently refused to take up a case that would have ad-dressed a split in the lower courts regarding mortgage underwriters and overtime. With conflicting cir-cuit court opinions on the matter, lenders face regulatory uncertainty about whether underwriters are entitled to overtime.
IberiaBank of Lafayette, LA, has agreed to pay $11.7 million to the federal government to resolve an alleged violation of the False Claims Act by submitting false certifications to obtain FHA in-surance on ineligible mortgages.
If lenders shift from traditional appraisals to automated valuation models, there could be an im-pact on loan-to-value ratios and loan balances for new originations, according to CoreLogic. The firm found that traditional appraisals done when a mortgage is originated are less likely than AVMs to reach a value below the contract price.
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