The Federal Housing Finance Agency “should not appreciably change” guaranty fees charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to a new paper by Moody’s Analytics. The paper, “A General Theory of G-Fees,” by Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, and Cristian deRitis, a senior director of consumer credit analytics, noted that the two GSEs are currently charging an average g-fee of approximately 60 basis points across all new loans they insure.

The Government Accountability Office took the Federal Housing Finance Agency to task last week for its less-than-transparent policy direction regarding guaranty fees. The wide-ranging report on housing finance reform efforts noted that the FHFA’s opaque position makes it difficult to hold the regulator accountable. “The lack of clearly stated goals for FHFA that recognize the potential trade-off between bringing private capital back into the market and making mortgage credit available has led to inconsistency in [the FHFA’s] policy on the level of guaranty fees on mortgage-backed securities issued by the enterprises,” the GAO said.

In a 2-to-1 decision earlier this month, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that tossed out state-law claims brought against Fannie Mae by homeowners fighting foreclosure proceedings. Homeowners in Lightfoot et al v. Cedant Mortgage Corp. et al sued Fannie and others in California state court after foreclosure proceedings were initiated against their homes. The homeowners filed the state court action after their prior federal claims were dismissed in federal district court.

In an unusual move, a Washington, DC, think tank has publicly taken to task the official watchdog of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, finding a recent audit of the FHFA’s representation-and-warranty policy “incomplete.” The September report by the FHFA’s Inspector General concluded that the Finance Agency’s implementation of the rep-and-warrant framework was premature and resulted in “significant and unresolved operational risks” to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. An analysis by the Urban Institute found that the OIG’s conclusions were “incomplete and overstate the risk of the plan.”

IG Recommends FHFA Upgrade Its Recordkeeping. The Federal Housing Finance Agency is in compliance with its recordkeeping procedures but the policy and infrastructure of its records management could do with an upgrade, concluded an evaluation by FHFA’s Inspector General last week. The IG said that the Finance Agency’s Division of Enterprise Regulation’s recordkeeping practices “have limitations that impede the efficient retrieval” of examination workpapers by agency staff and by IG auditors.

Most mortgage industry experts had expected loan origination volume to drop off significantly in the third quarter of 2014, but early indicators suggest just the opposite. An Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of earnings reports from seven large banks with major mortgage operations shows their combined loan originations increased by 8.7 percent from the second quarter. Together, the group racked up $97.4 billion in mortgage originations during the third quarter ...

When two mortgage companies combine forces, the merged operation may have to deal with redundancies in operations, fulfillment, human resources and other areas that result in staff cuts. However, loan officers can see opportunity if the companies are combining to reach new markets. Not all LOs stay. In fact, once word leaks out that a company is a takeover target, many LOs start weighing their options, contacting competitors and sales managers who tried to ...

With most “easy” refinance business long gone, some lenders have turned their attention to lower credit-quality borrowers. New research from Fair Isaac suggests that borrowers with the lowest credit scores are showing improved performance, helping to ease some concerns about lending to such borrowers. Ethan Dornhelm, principal scientist at Fair Isaac, said average FICO scores tend to decline during an economic downturn, as consumers have more difficulty meeting loan obligations ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac customer buybacks totaled $1.269 billion during the second quarter of 2014, according to an Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of Securities and Exchange Commission disclosures made by the two government-sponsored enterprises. Lender buybacks had declined to just $522.5 million in the first three months of 2014, but the repurchase volume jumped 142.8 percent in the second quarter. While Fannie and Freddie reported that they ... [Includes two data charts]