The consensus among mortgage market watchers is that the downgrade earlier this month of the GSEs by Standard & Poor’s will have no immediate, detrimental impact even as Fitch Ratings this week said it is keeping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s “AAA” rating.Fitch this week also said its outlook for Fannie and Freddie’s ratings remained “stable.” The move was in concert with Fitch’s decision to keep its rating on U.S. debt at the highest grade.“A key element of the explicit support is the guarantee by the U.S. Treasury to inject funds into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so that each firm can avoid being considered technically insolvent by their regulator,” said the rating agency.

The Vice-Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and an outspoken GSE critic, is among the Capitol Hill lawmakers named to be one of the 12 “super committee” House and Senate members tasked with tackling debt reduction.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and three federal agencies are cranking up existing efforts to dispose of the GSEs’ ample real estate owned inventory of homes into overdrive by seeking investors’ ideas for converting thousands of REO properties into rentals.Last week, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Treasury Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development put out a “request for information” on how best to sell GSE and FHA-owned REO properties.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lost less in the second quarter of 2011 than during the previous three month period and less than one year ago, but the two GSEs continue to struggle with a huge run of losses well into the fifth year with no end in sight.

A group of House Democrats wants the Obama administration to extend the forbearance period up to a year for unemployed homeowners with mortgages owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

A report issued late last week by the Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of Inspector General has concluded that the FHFA did nothing to subvert its role as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s regulator when the agency negotiated the GSEs’ administrative responsibilities under the Treasury Department’s Home Affordable Modification Program.However, the FHFA-OIG noted there was ample room for improvement in the Finance Agency’s oversight of the GSEs’ financial agency agreement (FAA) with Treasury, which resulted in poor communication and differing expectations as to the payment and scope of the HAMP-related work that the GSEs performed.

A conservative, non-partisan public interest group is considering its options following a recent federal appeals court decision affirming the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s right to withhold documentation revealing the extent of political campaign donations made by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.On Aug. 5, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a lower court ruling against Judicial Watch.

AARP has filed a class action lawsuit against Wells Fargo Bank and Fannie Mae in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco on behalf of reverse mortgage borrowers and their survivors in what it says is an attempt to head off illegal Home Equity Conversion Mortgage foreclosures and evictions.

One of the most important issues for mortgage lenders and homebuyers alike in the whole qualified mortgage/risk-retention/ability-to-repay debate is how much legal liability lenders will have over the mortgages they originate in the Dodd-Frank era. For policymakers, one of the biggest decisions they will have to make to bring certainty to that question is which legal standard to impose, a “rebuttable presumption” or a “safe harbor.” …