With the legislative calendar growing shorter and Democrats avoiding saying anything positive about the GOP draft legislation on housing-finance reform, many in the industry are worrying more about what might happen to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when Mel Watt leaves his post as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Mortgage delinquencies overall increased at the end of the year, with the poor performance largely attributed to areas hit by hurricanes in August and September. Mortgage performance in most of the rest of the country actually improved at the end of 2017.

WMIH Corp., a shell company whose chief asset is tax losses, this week agreed to purchase Nationstar Mortgage for roughly $1.68 billion in cash and stock.

The board authorized by Congress to establish appraisal standards will reduce the minimum criteria for a person to become a licensed residential appraiser. The decision stemmed from concerns about appraiser shortages and disagreements among industry participants on how to address the issue.

The House of Representatives this week approved bills extending regulatory relief pertaining to the integrated disclosure rule under the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, or TRID.

The Trump administration proposed a new fee on FHA lenders to upgrade the agency’s ancient technology – a plan that’s been raised by several administrations only to be batted away by Congress.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both suffered from what’s likely to be a one-time event that resulted in a hit on their earnings for the fourth quarter thanks to the late 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that impacted their deferred tax assets.

Joshua Rosner, managing director of Graham Fisher & Co., states: “This sounds like the early stages of a utility model..."

The DTA hit Fannie took and the resulting net loss was fully expected and likely won’t cause an uproar on Capitol Hill. However, one lobbyist quipped: "Ah, the first taxpayer bailout of a large financial institution since the Great Recession."

As National Association of Realtors Vice President Joe Ventrone put it: “It’s an unintended consequence of the tax bill rather than falling into the bailout narrative.”