Fannie Mae adjusted its automated underwriting services last summer to make more loans with higher debt-to-income ratios eligible for approval without lenders needing to provide compensating factors.

More Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders have initiated lawsuits against the government for the Treasury sweep of the mortgage giants’ profits.

Housing-finance reform appears to be in the process of a slow death for 2018 partly because of the pending departure of key players.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency reported this week that the GSEs completed 67,569 foreclosure prevention actions in the fourth quarter of 2017.

Former Fannie Mae executive and critic of the government-sponsored enterprises’ credit-risk transfer programs, Tim Howard, said on his blog this week that CRTs only help “sustain what has become a very profitable program for Wall Street firms and capital market investors.”

The mortgage servicing business racked up its third consecutive year of steady growth in 2017.

Freddie Mac announced its first non-performing loan sale of the year this week.

GSE buyback volume fell 11.6 percent from the 2016 total, including an 11.4 percent drop from the third to the fourth quarter of last year.

The decline in mortgage applications was driven by applications for refinances, as requests for purchase mortgages increased slightly.

The IRS recently formed a working group comprised of industry participants to address problems with the Income Verification Express Service, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.