Freddie Mac is still owed $1.2 billion from the bankrupt Lehman Brothers and likely will not be reimbursed anytime soon due to the fact that the GSE is an “unsecured” creditor, according to a new report by the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Office of Inspector General. The report notes that the loan was made in August of 2008, not long before Lehman went bust and Freddie was placed into government conservatorship. The loan was described by Freddie officials as a “Fed Funds” transaction available to Lehman on an overnight basis. However, the limit on such transactions was $250 million, according to the OIG Report.

Not only was the jumbo market on a roll last year but the GSEs were major players, according to new figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance.

Among other things, the bill removes from the calculation of fees and points Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loan level price adjustments.

Proposed legislation would ban the use of guaranty-fees to pay for non-housing federal expenditures.

A top production executive from CitiMortgage has departed the megabank for the pastures of Texas and Nationstar Mortgage.

Freddie Mac is still owed $1.2 billion from Lehman Brothers, which went bust five years ago. Also, Wells Fargo sells NPLs to Citigroup.

The jumbo mortgage market enjoyed solid growth in new originations last year, but agency securitization programs regained some of the ground lost to the private sector back in 2011, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHA in 2012 financed a record $117.6 billion of home mortgages that exceed the traditional jumbo threshold of $417,000. That was up 38.9 percent from the combined agency total back in 2011, and it was roughly twice the growth rate in non-agency jumbo mortgage originations. The non-agency jumbo market rose...[Includes three data charts]

Republicans on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee got a tougher time from their Democrat counterparts than Richard Cordray got from the Republicans during this week’s hearing on his re-nomination to be the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Political observers see that as a sign of GOP confidence in the leverage they have in trying to compel President Obama and his allies on Capitol Hill to agree to some key changes to the bureau in exchange for installing Cordray for a second term at its helm. Republicans continue...

Early on, one of the biggest problems with the Home Affordable Refinance Program was the inability of nonbank lenders to participate in the effort. Many were willing – but their warehouse lenders were nervous about putting high loan-to-value loans on their books, even for just a few weeks. But since last summer Fannie Mae, and to a lesser extent Freddie Mac, have made a concerted effort to allay the fears of warehouse financiers about the risk inherent in the loans. “Fannie Mae has basically been...[Includes one data chart]

Most mortgage banking firms – both bank and nonbanks alike – have been posting record profits over the past year, creating the pleasant problem of what to do with all that cash. According to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance over the past few weeks, certain nonbank owners have been taking cash out of their companies, using the money to pay hefty tax bills. Others have been leaving money in the company and searching for ways to shelter income. One way to do that, according to some tax experts, is to retain originated servicing rights. This is...