Speaking at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington Thursday afternoon, FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco gave no hint how much of a reduction might be in store. He also took no questions from the audience.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency is requiring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to promptly notify the agency whenever they detect fraud “or other financial misconduct” with any business entity they have done business with during the past three years.
Meanwhile, sources told Inside Mortgage Finance that the FHFA is looking to extract several billion dollars from Bank of America to settle claims that its Countrywide Financial division sold the GSEs toxic MBS.
According to one servicing advisor, large banks – including Wells Fargo – have been quietly selling excess servicing rights through private securitizations.
One mortgage recruiter noted that job losses in somewhat rural communities can be a big problem for workers. “Sometimes they’re the largest employer in town and there’s nowhere else to go,” he said.
Previously, speculation has ranged from January 1 to June 30. Mortgage bankers told Inside Mortgage Finance that whatever the FHFA decides on an implementation date, it had better do so soon.
Bucking the stampede of mortgage- and housing-industry interests campaigning against a cut in the conforming loan limits for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the American Securitization Forum is urging the Federal Housing Finance Agency to go ahead and shrink the footprint of the two government-sponsored enterprises. The ASF urged the FHFA to use its authority “to at least marginally reduce” GSE loan limits to lessen Fannie’s and Freddie’s “vice grip on the mortgage market finance market” and encourage the return of private capital. “Such marginal reductions in conforming loan limits would appropriately increase...
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