The Federal Housing Finance Agency and the city of Chicago have reached a face-saving settlement in a longstanding legal dispute over whether Fannie and Freddie, as entities under federal conservatorship, are subject to the city’s vacant-building ordinance. Under the terms of a settlement reached earlier this month but announced last week, the two GSEs will voluntarily register vacant properties with the city but won’t be subject to a $500 registration fee. The FHFA will also no longer seek to recover registration fees or penalties already paid to Chicago.

The recently installed head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency is getting a lot of conflicting advice about whether Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should contribute to the housing trust funds. Last week in a letter to FHFA Director Mel Watt, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, urged Watt to continue the Finance Agency’s five-year old policy of withholding GSE contributions to the trust funds. Hensarling’s letter – co-signed by Reps. Scott Garrett, R-NJ, and Ed Royce, R-CA – followed a similar letter by GOP senators in early March, which countered a January letter by 33 Democrats calling on Watt to authorize Fannie and Freddie funding to the National Housing Trust Fund immediately.

Modified Freddie Mac mortgages performed somewhat better than Fannie Mae loans in the short term while the performance gap between the two GSEs closed two years after modification, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The OCC’s latest Mortgage Metrics Report noted that Freddie loans had a 15.9 percent re-default rate three months after modification, while Fannie mods saw a 16.4 percent rate. At the six-month mark, Freddie stood at 22.7 percent compared to Fannie’s 23.6 percent.

In the wake of sharp increases in commercial bank borrowing from the Federal Home Loan Bank system in order to keep up with new international bank-liquidity rules, the Federal Housing Finance Agency should be more transparent in reporting FHLBank advances, according to the agency’s official watchdog. The FHFA’s Office of Inspector General noted in an audit released Wednesday that FHLBank system advances have been increasing, reaching $492 billion by year-end 2013. The growth in advances has been driven primarily by the four largest members of the system – JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo.

A New York state judge last week dismissed with prejudice a $567 million legal action brought by the Federal Housing Finance Agency against Deutsche Bank in 2012 over the bank’s refusal to repurchase hundreds of millions of residential mortgage-backed securities from Freddie Mac. Judge Eileen Bransten of New York’s State Supreme Court in Manhattan ruled the FHFA’s suit is barred by New York’s six-year statute of limitations.The FHFA sought to have the bank cover Freddie’s losses on defective MBS purchased from a $1.4 billion transaction.

Activity Plunges. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securitized just $29.95 billion of single-family mortgages with private mortgage-insurance coverage during the first quarter of 2014, a 30.9 percent decline from the previous period, according to an analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance, an affiliated publication. The steepness of the private MI downturn was in line with the 29.1 percent downturn in overall business at the two GSEs from the fourth quarter of 2013. And the flow of private MI loans in early 2014 was down 40.2 percent from the first quarter of last year, a less severe drop than the 63.7 swoon in the overall GSE market over that period.

A sustained decline in GSE refinances, coupled with faltering purchase activity throughout the first quarter, helped contribute to an overall drop in the volume of single-family mortgages securitized by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in March. In the first quarter of 2014, Fannie and Freddie combined for $355.8 billion in new single-family securitizations, down 63.7 percent year-to-date.In March, Fannie and Freddie produced just $37.6 billion of single-family MBS, down 15.6 percent from February. It was the lowest monthly volume since January 2009.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities remained the preferred investment choice of the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks during the fourth quarter of 2013, though with a negligible increase from the previous quarter, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside The GSEs based on data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Meanwhile, Ginnie Mae securities posted a sizable increase within the FHLBank system during the period ending Dec. 31, 2013. GSE MBS accounted for 74.9 percent of combined FHLBank MBS portfolios, 0.3 percent from the third quarter. The Finance Agency’s data do not separately break out Fannie and Freddie volume or share.

Originations by six major banks in the first quarter of 2014 fell by 27.9 percent compared with the previous quarter.

The Dodd-Frank Act prompted major changes for mortgage joint ventures, with some firms striking out on their own and others sticking with the smaller market.