The Mortgage Bankers Association has asked the FHA to allow the use of electronic signatures on all FHA loan origination forms to help reduce fraud and other procedural issues in the home buying process. E-signatures are already acceptable under federal law and by the FHA under certain circumstances, the MBA noted in a letter to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The use of e-signatures helps reduce the time required to close a mortgage loan, which may lead to...

Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac retained their ample role in mortgage-backed security market share during the first quarter of 2011, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis. Both GSEs issued...[Includes one data chart]

The Federal Home Loan Banks should be transformed into a “wholly private structure” in order to defuse the potential systemic risk of incompatible public and private goals, the same conflict that helped usher the downfall of fellow GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, argue...

Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have put their foot down regarding certain agreements between servicers and mortgage insurers, reminding them in no uncertain terms that any deals that might compromise the mortgage insurance of GSE loans are prohibited. Fannie published...

Fannie Mae is tightening its loan modification requirements and calling on servicers to consider a loan modification only when a repayment plan is not appropriate to cure the delinquency. According to Announcement SVC-2011-03, issued April 4, the GSE has updated...

The proposal pushed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to end government support of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is a “huge step in the right direction” toward housing recovery, according to a Heritage Foundation senior research fellow. A paper by Heritage’s David John supports...

In a move that might bring more certainty to the role of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems in the foreclosure process, Fannie Mae is requiring lenders to more clearly identify MERS-registered mortgages. The government-sponsored enterprise already requires lenders to report the MERS Mortgage Identification Number for mortgages originated with MERS as the nominee for the mortgagee or assigned to MERS. Then two weeks ago, Fannie announced several updates to its selling guide having to do with MERS-registered mortgages, one of which is...

Jumbo mortgage originations held up better than the overall market in early 2011, but more of the strength in the sector came from agency programs, according to a new Inside Mortgage Finance ranking and analysis. Mortgage lenders originated an estimated $51.2 billion of new loans that exceeded the bench-mark $417,000 conforming loan limit during the first quarter of 2011. That was down 7.8 percent from the fourth quarter of last year, a much better showing than the 35.0 percent downturn in total mortgage originations during the same period. In fact, loans exceeding $417,000 accounted for...[includes two data charts]

The Congressional Budget Office is recommending changes in how the government accounts for programs that dominate the residential mortgage market, which could make the FHA program less at-tractive, politically, and shape the post-Fannie/Freddie market. In a pair of recent reports, the CBO said the government should adopt fair-value accounting for assessing the cost of the FHA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the federal budget. Congress currently uses special rules mandated by the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 in creating annual budgets for the FHA, while the government-sponsored enterprises are...

Federal banking regulators extended the comment period for their controversial risk-retention proposal to Aug.1 after meeting with the American Bankers Association, the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Association of Realtors and consumer groups last Thursday. The proposed rule generally would require sponsors of asset-backed securities to hold on to a minimum 5 percent of the credit risk of the assets underlying their securities. Among the most controversial aspects of the proposal is its...