New groups of disgruntled GSE junior shareholders have taken their demands for redress to the next level by rallying against the Senate’s pending bipartisan housing finance reform legislation. Earlier this month, the Coalition for Mortgage Security said it would campaign for legislation that protects the rights of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac investors. The group opposes the reform legislation fronted by Sens. Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Mike Crapo, R-ID, the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.

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.

While the mortgage and housing industry awaits with growing impatience for a public statement from the recently appointed head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, market observers expect Mel Watt to speak only when he is good and ready. The former 11-term North Carolina Democrat Congressman has been silent since he was sworn in to his position as FHFA director in early January. Watt has made almost no public statements nor granted any media interviews but he has spent the past weeks “doing his homework” and quietly meeting with industry trade groups seeking input.

Some 30.0 percent of homes purchased in March avoided the use of mortgage financing, according to the latest Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. While mostly associated with investors, a fair share of current homeowners rely on cash for home purchases as a way to avoid the hassles associated with mortgage closings. The cash share of home-purchase financing has increased fairly steadily since August, when 26.5 percent of home purchases ...

While Congress is halfway through its two-week Easter/Passover recess, political pressure continues to build against the Senate’s bipartisan housing finance reform legislation, leading to growing doubt whether the scheduled markup of the bill will occur as scheduled later this month. At the moment, the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee has only the bare minimum majority of 12 of the 22 committee members pledged to support the GSE legislative reform bill crafted by Chairman Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Ranking Member Mike Crapo, R-ID.

A new report by Fannie Mae finds that second-home mortgage market activity is in the midst of a strong rebound, representing a small yet significant corner of the mortgage market. Fannie’s report – Second Homes: Recovery Post Financial Crisis – noted that the uneven economic recovery has a benefit to the second-home buyer, who tends to be older, earns more and consequently has the means to make a larger downpayment ... [Includes one data chart]

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau plans to announce a voluntary pilot project next week related to its efforts to streamline and improve the mortgage-closing process – an initiative likely to rely heavily on the industry’s latest technological capabilities, and perhaps stimulate some innovation in the process. The pilot will be formally announced on Wednesday during a live online webcast of a public forum the bureau plans to conduct at its headquarters in Washington, DC ...

It’s been a full three months since the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s ability-to-repay final rule and qualified-mortgage definition have been implemented. So far, there have been no significant changes to origination strategies on the part of lenders, according to a Standard & Poor’s survey of rated mortgage lenders. “In terms of projected regulatory impact on recent lending activity, 84 percent of 2013 mortgage production was QM compliant, with the remaining ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did significantly less business during the first quarter of 2014 along just about every metric you can think of, but the two government-sponsored enterprises saw out-sized declines from their biggest customers. The top five GSE sellers accounted for just 33.3 percent of single-family mortgage deliveries during the first quarter of this year, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of ... [Includes two data charts]

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae issued a combined $60.2 billion of real estate mortgage investment conduits backed by single-family MBS during the first quarter of 2014, a relatively modest decline of 11.6 percent. New MBS issuance by the agencies fell by 26.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2013 and was down 59.5 percent from the first three months of 2013. Freddie actually increased...[Includes two data charts]