Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are likely to find the multifamily MBS space to be noticeably more competitive this year as increasing levels of private capital respond to improving market conditions, one top government-sponsored enterprise official suggests. One of the most influential factors that will determine how much volume the GSEs do in multifamily will be “more competition in the market in 2014 than we saw in 2013,” thanks to increasing levels of private capital, according to Manny Menendez, senior vice president of multifamily capital markets and pricing for Fannie. Besides Freddie and FHA, the three other main competitors for Fannie in the sector are...

Who at the GSEs (or at the Federal Housing Finance Agency) was responsible for telling Fannie and Freddie to set aside so much money for loan losses and were those assumptions way off base?

The Treasury Department’s point man on housing declared this week that the government has no appetite to expand the Home Affordable Refinance Program, and he reiterated past Obama administration pledges to cashier Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Michael Stegman, counselor to the Treasury on housing finance policy, outlined for attendees of the ABS Vegas conference the administration’s housing goals, including its opposition to any HARP eligibility tweaking and its continued support for housing finance reform.

Three House Democrats have added their own proposal to the growing list of legislative housing finance reforms that, in time, could pave the way for the government to sell off Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while giving new purpose to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The reform proposal by Reps. John Delaney (MD), John Carney (DE) and Jim Himes (CT) would establish a system of government reinsurance for eligible mortgage-backed securities. The idea is to leverage the government’s capacity and the market’s ability to price risk, they said.

Investors hoping to get in on the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac preferred stock speculation game may want to bring their wallets. The price of the “junior” preferred is now trading at roughly 40 percent of par compared to 20 percent a few months ago, according to investors in the market.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should revise their seller/servicer guidelines to allow use of credit scores from more than one provider in order to “foster competition,” according to a bipartisan quartet of House Financial Services Committee members. In a letter sent to Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt, Reps. Ed Royce, R-CA; Spencer Bachus, R-AL; James Himes, D-CT; and Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, said that the GSEs should not be restricted to relying on credit scores provided solely by the Fair Isaac Corp.

Fannie Mae last week priced its second capital markets risk-sharing transaction, with about 50 investors buying into the $750 million deal. The more senior of the two tranches offered by Fannie priced at one-month LIBOR plus a spread of 160 basis points, while the lower tranche priced at one-month LIBOR plus a spread of 440 basis points.

Fannie Mae has signed a definitive agreement to buy $10.3 billion of mostly delinquent mortgage servicing rights from Citigroup for an undisclosed sum. Roughly 64,000 Fannie-backed loans are involved in the transaction. The GSE confirmed the sale last week. It plans to transfer the receivables to one of its specialty servicers, but declined to say which one. It has about five, including the IBM-owned Seterus and Walter Investment.

Fannie Mae’s process for paying for servicer property inspections has “significant control deficiencies,” prompting the official watchdog of the Federal Housing Finance Agency to conclude that additional agency oversight is required, according to a new report. The audit by the FHFA’s Office of Inspector General estimated that some 9.5 percent of claims for pre-foreclosure property inspections in 2011 and 2012 resulted in $5 million in overpayments by Fannie. GSE guidelines require servicers to perform a monthly inspection on all delinquent properties.