At a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, criticized FHFA Acting Director Ed DeMarco for his plan to reduce both the conforming loan limit and the high-cost limit.

Any policies employed by federal regulators that restrict mortgage lending in localities that use eminent domain to seize underwater mortgages would violate anti-discrimination laws, according to a group of House Democrats. In letters to two government agencies, a group of 10 Democrat lawmakers led by Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison said the Federal Housing Finance Agency should continue to provide access to government-sponsored enterprise MBS guaranties and the Department of Housing and Urban Development should allow FHA mortgage insurance in such communities. “To deny such access would be illegal under the Fair Housing Act and would violate credit discrimination laws,” according to a draft of the letters obtained by Inside MBS & ABS. An FHFA spokesman confirmed...

Industry observers who closely follow the GSEs predict that other private-equity firms and hedge funds will continue to buy the preferred and common shares of Fannie and Freddie, believing they can flip the stock for a quick profit or receive a pay-out down the road.

Lobbyists and analysts who track the market are unanimous on one key issue: GSE loan limits. From what we’re told, Watt will shelve any thought of lowering the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac mortgage limit in 2014.

It is all but certain that the Federal Housing Finance Agency will soon have its first permanent and confirmed director since the agency’s inception, following the move late this week by Senate Democrats to invoke the “nuclear option” for presidential nominees. The Senate voted 52 to 48 to change its own rules to permit most executive and judicial nominees to pass by a simple majority vote.

A senior Obama administration official this week flatly rejected the notion of private investors purchasing the mortgage-backed securities business of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. White House Economic Advisor Gene Sperling noted while speaking at a Washington, DC, conference that the White House won’t get behind a $52 billion proposal by Fairholme Capital Management to purchase and spin off the GSEs’ insurance business.

A group of House Democratic lawmakers is warning the Federal Housing Finance Agency that prohibiting GSE access to municipalities that use eminent domain to restructure underwater mortgages would constitute illegal discrimination against minority homeowners. In a letter to FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco, a group of 10 House Democrats led by Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison said Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s refusal to insure loans seized and rewritten via eminent domain would be illegal under the Fair Housing Act and violate credit discrimination laws.

The successor regulator to the Federal Housing Finance Agency should be immediately infused with the FHFA’s talent and resources upon inception rather than a potentially “confusing and inefficient “ five-year transition period where past and future regulators would co-exist, an FHFA official told lawmakers this week. Testifying before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, FHFA General Counsel Alfred Pollard told senators that moving all employees to the new agency – or possibly renaming and empowering the FHFA as the proposed Federal Mortgage Insurance Corp. – would avoid a potential brain drain.

JPMorgan Chase twice in as many weeks announced multi-billion dollar deals to settle legal disputes with numerous parties – including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency – involving residential mortgage-backed securities. This week, the Department of Justice, along with other federal and state agencies – including the Federal Housing Finance Agency – reached a $13 billion settlement with JPMorgan, which acknowledged making misrepresentations about billions of dollars in MBS sold…

Whether, when or by how much the Federal Housing Finance Agency will direct an increase in Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s guaranty fees is fast becoming a political as well as a policy issue based on recent public calls by both industry and progressive advocacy groups. Last week, nine industry trade groups – including the American Bankers Association, the Mortgage Bankers Association and the Community Mortgage Lenders of America – dispatched a letter to the respective chairmen of the House and Senate Budget Committees.