The Federal Housing Finance Agency is drawing flak after asking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac CEOs to submit executive compensation analyses that could significantly boost pay for top management at the government-sponsored enterprises. The FHFA capped Fannie and Freddie CEO salaries at $600,000 in 2012, but FHFA Director Mel Watt wants to change that. In its first-quarter earnings statement, Freddie revealed that the regulator asked the GSEs’ boards to review CEO compensation. Rep. Ed Royce, R-CA, doesn’t...

Since late February, Ocwen Financial has struck four different deals to sell $89.4 billion in Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac servicing rights. Although buyer interest in the high-quality receivables was strong, getting those transactions past the Federal Housing Finance Agency has been a different matter. Industry advisors note that in general Fannie and Freddie promise their seller/servicers they will approve MSR transfers within 60 days unless there’s a problem. Last summer, the approval time was increased from 30 days, a change that did not receive much publicity. The FHFA, on the other hand, offers...

Realtors want Congress to tackle reform of the government-sponsored enterprises, but they are keenly aware of the huge difficulties facing the effort, according to participants at this week’s annual legislative conference held by the National Association of Realtors. “I think what we want to get through to people in Congress is that these [GSE] programs were designed to be around and to be effective in times of a recession and prosperity in every single section of the country. That’s what they were there to do,” said Jerry Giovaniello, NAR’s senior vice president of government affairs. He said...

In a recent 10-K filing Ocwen disclosed that on April 30, 2015 it announced agreements with the GSEs to sell portfolios of non-performing loan servicing rights.

Watt said GSE pay should be brought more in line with comparable private sector jobs, but no higher than what CEOs in the 25th percentile of the market make, which is roughly $7.26 million a year.

To date, CSS has yet to perform a beta test and has a “black budget” whose details are only known to Fannie, Freddie and their regulator.

Plenty of attendees at NAR were steamed that after CFPB Director Richard Cordray made his remarks about TRID that he left the meeting without taking a single question from the audience.

Fannie and Freddie securitized $26.34 billion of purchase mortgages in April, a 24.3 percent increase from the previous month.

In late March, IMA noted that it was working on several deals totaling just over $20 billion, but all were being negotiated privately...

Stevens also said that while he was FHA commissioner he chose not to go after lenders for violating the False Claims Act because he said such actions would have opened a “Pandora’s Box.”