In the event that Congress can’t come to an agreement on fixing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said the department can take matters into its own hands. But he would rather leave it up to the lawmakers. “There are certain administrative options that we have,” he said, adding, “These entities are very complicated, and I would just say my strong preference would be to work with Congress on a bipartisan basis to reach a long-term solution.” Mnuchin reaffirmed his commitment to reforming the housing-finance system and support for the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage while testifying at a Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs hearing Tuesday morning.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw declines in the flow of purchase and refinance loans into single-family mortgage-backed securities last month, starting 2018 on a sour note. The two GSEs produced a total of $67.48 billion of new single-family MBS in January, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis and ranking. That was down 8.8 percent from the previous month and off 26.4 percent from January 2017. It was the GSEs’ weakest monthly output since May 2017, and it would have been worse had Fannie not come up with $4.69 billion in mortgage securities backed by modified loans. Including those mod-backed deals, Fannie issuance was up 5.0 percent from December. Without them, the company’s new MBS issuance fell 5.7 percent in January.

With housing-finance reform gaining momentum, the Milken Institute said bringing it over the finish line requires policymakers to address the technical issues in the proposed multiple-guarantor model or one based on private insurance. Failing to address those issues would leave the housing-finance system in worse shape than keeping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in conservatorship, the organization said in a new analysis. The multiple-guarantor model suggests attracting new guarantors to promote competition in the market and end the GSE duopoly. But the authors of the paper, which include Erik Kaplan, Michael Stegman, Phillip Swagel and Ted Tozer, said that’s a two-fold challenge that includes determining how to provide space for new guarantors to enter the...

Beginning Feb. 1, Freddie Mac will offer a cash benefit to sellers of low-balance loan pools in the $175,000 to $200,000 range. Prior to the announcement, $175,000 was the cut off for cash payouts through the program These benefits are reserved for loan sellers that fit into niche loans sizes used for specified MBS pools. The new category targeted for cash deliveries are 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with loan amounts ranging from $175,000 to $200,000. A spokesman for Freddie said the change was made as a benefit to its customers.

The National Association of Realtors said GSE guarantee fees are gouging homeowners and urged the Federal Housing Finance Agency to slash them. Its argument is based on the lower corporate tax rate resulting from the 2017 tax law. The trade group, which has been campaigning for lower g-fees for a while now, notes that g-fees are based in part on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac target pre-tax rate of return. Lower tax rates change that calculation, the NAR said. “To account for the impact of tax reform on the rate of return, the FHFA should reduce g-fees to reflect the lower corporate tax rate and to preserve the current target rate of return,” said Elizabeth Mendenhall, NAR’s president.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency finalized its 2018-2022 strategic plan this week. A draft proposal of the plan was released back in October for public input. The long-range plan focuses on three strategic goals surrounding issues of safety and soundness of the GSEs; ensuring liquidity, stability and access in housing finance; and managing the conservatorship. When identifying risk in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the FHFA said it plans to carefully document and communicate any adverse examination findings and conclusions to the GSEs.

Freddie Prices First Lower LTV STACR of 2018. Freddie Mac priced a $900 million Structured Agency Credit Risk debt notes offering last week, its first lower loan-to-value deal of the year. STACR 2018-DNA1 has a reference pool of single-family mortgages with an unpaid principal balance of approximately $34.7 billion. The reference pool includes loans with LTVs ranging from 60 to 80 percent. CoreLogic to Redistribute GSE CRT Data. CoreLogic announced this week that it is redistributing credit risk transfer loan-level data from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The CRT redistribution will include Fannie Mae’s Connecticut Avenue Securities data as well as data from Freddie Mac’s Structured Agency...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had one of their slowest quarters ever in new credit-risk transfer deals late in 2017, but ended the year with record output all the same.

Ginnie Mae would become the linchpin of the conventional secondary mortgage market of the future, providing an explicit government guarantee for MBS issued by one of several new entities, under a plan being drafted by Senate Republicans.

The National Association of Realtors this week asked the regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to lower the MBS guarantee fees charged by the two government-sponsored enterprises, citing lower corporate tax rates ushered in under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.