The Federal Housing Finance Agency has issued guidance to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on how to effectively pursue and collect deficiencies from borrowers who may have the ability to repay their mortgages. In a recent advisory bulletin, the FHFA identified the factors the GSEs should consider before attempting to recover a deficiency balance.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency failed to clarify the goals and objectives for its real-estate owned pilot program, as well as for the future of the GSEs’ REO disposition activities as the program evolved, according to a recent audit by FHFA’s Office of Inspector General. The FHFA-OIG report criticizes both the Finance Agency and Fannie Mae for shortfalls in their planning and oversight of the REO pilot program.

As the partial government shutdown and debt-ceiling crisis completed its second week, the sense of relative urgency for housing finance reform that lawmakers from both parties expressed just a month ago at the five-year anniversary of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s conservatorship had taken a back seat to larger, partisan hostilities, say industry observers.In September, Democrat and Republican leadership of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee set a goal of finishing committee-level consideration of GSE reform by the end of 2013.

SunTrust Banks late this week said it has entered into a $968 million mortgage settlement with the GSEs and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to resolve buyback claims and losses suffered by the FHA. Overall, Fannie Mae will receive $323 million in cash, Freddie Mac $65 million. The payment to Fannie releases the nation’s ninth largest home funder – according to figures compiled by Inside Mortgage Finance – from “certain existing and future repurchase obligations.”

Expect more GSE repurchase settlements in the near future, say industry insiders, following last week’s announcement by Freddie Mac that it scored a trifecta of buyback settlements with three of the country’s biggest financial institutions. Wells Fargo, Citigroup and SunTrust Mortgage will pay a combined $1.3 billion to the GSE and in exchange Freddie will – with some limitations and exclusions – release the companies from certain existing and future loan repurchase obligations for specific populations of loans.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency holds the keys to the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac loan limit kingdom, but it’s giving no clues – or interviews – as to where it’s headed on the issue. Meanwhile, pressure is mounting on the regulator to do nothing. As far as the mortgage industry is concerned, it knows a change is coming and hopes that when FHFA finally lowers the current high-cost limit of $625,500 the implementation date will come deep into the second quarter of 2014, or at the very least, March 31.

The most important take away from this week’s loan limit reduction news: Congress warning DeMarco that he’d better defer to them on loan limits. His reply: radio silence. Meanwhile, Wells tosses Freddie overboard, sort of.

“Any future announcement will be made in conjunction with stakeholders to minimize volatility in the MBS market,” Ginnie Mae said, emphasizing that no decision has been made on the issue.

There is no mention in the SunTrust filing how much HUD/FHA might receive. A spokesman for the bank declined to provide a number to Inside Mortgage Finance.

“Linking of qualified residential mortgages (QRM) in the risk-retention rules to the definition of qualified mortgage (QM) in the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rules will further deepen the divide between QM and non-QM loans in terms of pricing and availability,” said attorney Stephen Kudenholdt of Dentons LLC.