The agency single-family MBS market posted its best quarter in a year as total issuance climbed to $267.33 billion during the third quarter of 2014, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking. The combined MBS issuance of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae rose 6.6 percent from the second quarter of 2014, hitting its strongest level since the third quarter of last year. On a year-to-date basis, agency MBS remained 48.7 percent below the pace set in the first nine months of 2013. Even the long-suffering non-agency MBS market showed...[Includes two data charts]
Industry experts vary on the question of whether Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should change their MBS guaranty pricing, but most agree that the Federal Housing Finance Agency should proceed cautiously and deliberately. At the same time, most industry comment letters on the subject agree that more needs to be done to revive the non-agency market. The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association warned...
Attorneys for disenfranchised GSE shareholders have already filed a notice to appeal this week’s surprise dismissal by a Washington, DC, federal judge of the lawsuits challenging the Treasury Department’s 2012 “net-worth sweep” of nearly all profits generated by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. However, a legal expert notes that the ruling by Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia makes a tall order even taller for investors taking on the government.
After six years of government control of the GSEs, Congressional inaction has ensured no legislative solution to housing finance reform anytime soon so the administration must take action, according to a white paper unveiled this week. Clifford Rossi, adjunct professor at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, told Inside The GSEs that a legislative fix to GSE reform is the ideal solution.
A federal judge in Florida this week dismissed a lawsuit brought by the National Low Income Housing Coalition seeking to force Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s conservator to make good on the GSEs’ statutory obligations to contribute to the National Housing Trust Fund. In the summer of 2013, the National Low Income Housing Coalition filed suit arguing that since the GSEs returned to profitability in 2012, the Federal Housing Finance Agency should have directed Fannie and Freddie to begin to pay up.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency disagrees with its Inspector General’s recommendation that the FHFA direct Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to assess the cost/benefit of requiring their sellers and servicers to provide independent, third-party confirmation on compliance with government-sponsored enterprise origination and servicing guidance. The IG audit, quietly issued late last week, noted that the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as private mortgage-backed securities investors in the secondary mortgage market, require annual, independent assurance of counterparty compliance.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency can and should improve its oversight of Freddie Mac information technology investments, concluded a new audit by the agency’s official watchdog. Last week’s Inspector General audit noted that Freddie is making “substantial investments” in IT in order to better support its operations and reduce risk. The GSE’s planned IT expenditures over three years are expected to exceed $1 billion, the IG added.
Fannie Mae last week announced two significant executive staffing changes. Leslie Peeler, senior vice president in charge of Fannie Mae’s National Servicing Organization, is leaving the GSE for a senior position with IBM’s mortgage group. It’s unclear what exactly Peeler will do for the mortgage division of IBM, which includes Seterus, a subservicer that works for Fannie Mae. IBM rarely discloses any information about its mortgage division.
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