President Obama this week moved to break a GOP blockade in the Senate by making a recess appointment of Richard Cordray to become director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a political maneuver that defies 20 years of precedent and may set the stage for a legal challenge. The Obama administration claimed that it is fully within its Constitutional authority to place the new director into his position, dismissing as a gimmick the pro-forma sessions Republicans used to block the nomination. A number of consumer groups came out in support of the appointment. The president’s allies in Congress were...

Congress has approved legislation mandating an FHA premium increase of 10 basis points, corresponding to an increase in fees charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for placing guarantees on cash flows to mortgage-backed securities investors. The increases were in the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011, which was approved by the House on Dec. 23 by unanimous consent and previously cleared by the Senate. In addition to raising guarantee fees charged by the two government-sponsored enterprises, the new law requires the Department of Housing and Urban Development to raise FHA annual...

Business was booming at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the just-completed fourth quarter of 2011, with total single-family mortgage securitization jumping 47.4 percent from the previous period, according to a new analysis and ranking by Inside Mortgage Finance. The two government-sponsored enterprises pumped out a combined $261.2 billion in single-family mortgage-backed securities during the final three months of the year. That was the highest quarterly production level of the year, but it still came up 21.2 percent short of the volume generated....(Includes three data charts)

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac this week advised lenders that they will increase the guarantee fees they charge on all mortgage products by 10 basis points starting April 1, the result of a money-raising scheme enacted by Congress in the waning hours of the 2011 legislative session. A 10 bps point hike in fees charged by the government-sponsored enterprises may have a nominal effect at first, but the long-term implications are more significant. Politically, the increased fees will not be used to cover losses incurred by Fannie and Freddie – or even to repay the government’s costs incurred to...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency should refrain from implementing a proposal that would overhaul the mortgage servicing compensation system as it has failed to make a “compelling case” as to why it is necessary to change a system that has “worked well for decades,” according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.In a comment letter sent to the Finance Agency earlier this month, MBA President and CEO David Stevens said the FHFA’s proposed changes would dramatically alter residential servicing, origination and secondary market operations, not necessarily for the better.“The current servicer compensation model is still the best approach and making radical changes, like the proposed ‘fee-for-service,’ will have dramatic impacts not just on originators, servicers and investors but also on borrowers in both the costs they pay to get a mortgage and the support they receive from their servicers,” said Stevens.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency last week filed suit against the city of Chicago claiming that its attempt to enforce a recently amended vacant buildings ordinance on properties owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “impermissibly encroaches” on the FHFA’s role as sole regulator of the GSEs.Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, the FHFA’s lawsuit on behalf of the two GSEs seeks to prevent the city from enforcing the ordinance which requires mortgagees to pay a $500 registration fee for vacant properties and requires monthly inspections of mortgage properties to determine if they are vacant. "The ordinance would impose on the enterprises the responsibilities, but not the benefits of ownership of vacant property on which they hold the mortgage,” said the FHFA in a statement. “The ordinance would create risks and liabilities for the enterprises at a time when they are already supported by taxpayers, including those in the city of Chicago.”

The official watchdog of the Federal Housing Finance Agency found a sympathetic audience in senators last week as the head of the FHFA’s Office of Inspector General sounded a now-familiar refrain – that the Finance Agency is falling short in its oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.Testifying before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, FHFA Inspector General Steve Linick said the OIG has identified “deficiencies” in Finance Agency operations which appear to reflect two “significant and related trends.” First, the FHFA has relied too much on the determinations of the two GSEs without independently testing and validating those determinations, testified Linick. “Second, FHFA was not proactive in oversight and enforcement and accordingly, resource allocations may have affected its ability to oversee the GSEs and enforce its directives,” said Linick. “Both trends have emerged in a number of our reports.”

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is cutting lenders a break for the holiday season in the form of a deadline extension for implementing changes to how lenders submit mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.The FHFA announced last week that Fannie and Freddie would delay implementation dates for the Uniform Loan Delivery Dataset, a key component of the GSEs’ Uniform Mortgage Data Program.“Industry participants have demonstrated continued support for the UMDP and the updated timeline will allow for a successful transition to a new loan delivery format,” said the Finance Agency. Announced by the GSEs in May 2010, the UMDP initiative was established to help improve loan data accuracy, simplify the exchange of data and increase confidence to lending institutions that the loan data provided are complete and accurate.

House Republicans last week moved a bill that would create a new non-agency residential mortgage-backed securities market to the full Financial Services Committee while the clamor grows for Congress to act on a more “comprehensive” legislative solution to GSE reform.By an 18-15 vote, the House Financial Services Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises Subcommittee approved the Private Mortgage Market Investment Act, advancing the measure to the full committee.The bill’s sponsor and Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Scott Garrett, R-NJ, said passage of the measure is an “important first step” to permit private market participants to re-enter the marketplace without adding more burdens to the taxpayer.The revised bill would require the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission to create several categories of mortgages with uniform underwriting standards for each, as well as to develop standard and uniform securitization agreements.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris filed suit this week against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, taking up a notch her probe of the two GSEs’ mortgage lending and foreclosure practices.The lawsuits, filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco, seek to compel the companies to turn over documents the AG’s office had sought through a subpoena served to the two companies on Nov. 15.The Federal Housing Finance Agency directed Fannie and Freddie not to respond to the subpoenas.The subpoenas sought information about how Fannie and Freddie are handling thousands of foreclosed properties, as well as details about the GSEs’ mortgage-servicing and home-repossession practices.