Industry experts vary on the question of whether Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should change their MBS guaranty pricing, but most agree that the Federal Housing Finance Agency should proceed cautiously and deliberately. At the same time, most industry comment letters on the subject agree that more needs to be done to revive the non-agency market. The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association warned...

Skyline Lending is ready to roll out a new non-agency product and plans to place the loans in what the company calls a “structured holding cell.”

Ginnie Mae this week updated investors on recent changes to loan-level disclosures for existing, active single-family MBS as well as future enhancements. Agency officials said investors will be getting additional loan-level and pool-level disclosures over the next couple of months. For example, Ginnie will soon start a record of pool transfer activity, which would include immediate transfers as well as regular transfers of MBS pools. The new pool transfer record will be...

According to one deal-maker, after a merger, anywhere between 30 percent to 40 percent of a company’s LOs might choose to leave.

Attorneys for disenfranchised GSE shareholders have already filed a notice to appeal this week’s surprise dismissal by a Washington, DC, federal judge of the lawsuits challenging the Treasury Department’s 2012 “net-worth sweep” of nearly all profits generated by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. However, a legal expert notes that the ruling by Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia makes a tall order even taller for investors taking on the government.

Industry observers expect that last week’s announced go-ahead to merge the Federal Home Loan Banks of Des Moines and Seattle will be a “one-off” as the remaining 10 FHLBanks are still in sound enough financial shape. Talk of a proposed merger between the FHLBank of Des Moines and the smaller, troubled FHLBank of Seattle was first made public in July and approved unanimously by both Bank boards last week.

After six years of government control of the GSEs, Congressional inaction has ensured no legislative solution to housing finance reform anytime soon so the administration must take action, according to a white paper unveiled this week. Clifford Rossi, adjunct professor at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, told Inside The GSEs that a legislative fix to GSE reform is the ideal solution.

A federal judge in Florida this week dismissed a lawsuit brought by the National Low Income Housing Coalition seeking to force Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s conservator to make good on the GSEs’ statutory obligations to contribute to the National Housing Trust Fund. In the summer of 2013, the National Low Income Housing Coalition filed suit arguing that since the GSEs returned to profitability in 2012, the Federal Housing Finance Agency should have directed Fannie and Freddie to begin to pay up.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency disagrees with its Inspector General’s recommendation that the FHFA direct Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to assess the cost/benefit of requiring their sellers and servicers to provide independent, third-party confirmation on compliance with government-sponsored enterprise origination and servicing guidance. The IG audit, quietly issued late last week, noted that the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as private mortgage-backed securities investors in the secondary mortgage market, require annual, independent assurance of counterparty compliance.

Efforts to reduce the government-sponsored enterprises’ footprint using guaranty fees and loan limits should be left to Congress, according to Bob Ryan, a special advisor to the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Meanwhile, officials at the Treasury Department suggest that the FHFA does have a role in setting policy that will inform any housing finance reform action by Congress.