Freddie Mac’s recently announced low-activity fee for seller/servicers not meeting new quotas for loan deliveries and mortgage servicing would limit the ability of community banks to provide mortgages to their customers and should be repealed before the policy takes effect next year, according to two industry trade groups. Last week, the Independent Community Bankers of America dispatched a letter to the government-sponsored enterprise and its conservator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, stating that Freddie’s assessment of a $7,500 annual fee to lenders who fail to deliver mortgage loans with an aggregate principal balance of more than $5 million or who service mortgages for the GSE with an aggregate balance of at least $25 million “goes too far.” The trade group complained...

Bank of America recorded $10.45 billion of mortgage repurchases and indemnifications during the first quarter of 2013, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of recently released call report data.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, countered that a purely non-agency mortgage market would be “a disaster to our economy.”

The M&A rumor mill continues to spit out names. An offering book is circulating on CashCall and at least one other shop, IMF has learned.

Roughly $148 billion of single-family agency MBS were issued last month, down almost 3 percent from April’s level. May was the slowest month for agency MBS issuance so far in 2013.

Among the many allegations, the plaintiffs charge that the seizure of Fannie and Freddie was “unlawful and unwarranted” and represents an unconstitutional violation of due process which cost investors billions of dollars.

Freddie Mac's low activity fee could add more than $2 million to its bottom line.

Community banks are getting slapped with a "low activity" fee from Freddie Mac and the ICBA is not happy.

Will cash-out refinancings ever return? Meanwhile, a new petition posted on the White House website that might helps GSE shareholders is taking off.

The bipartisan legislation to replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that’s taking shape in the Senate would leverage key reform projects already underway at the government-sponsored enterprises, but it doesn’t tackle some of the key transition issues the market would face by putting the GSEs out of business. The reform plan being put together by Sens. Bob Corker, R-TN, and Mark Warner, D-VA, has at its core the risk-sharing projects currently being designed by the GSEs, according to a copy of the draft legislation provided to Inside MBS & ABS. The Secondary Mortgage Market Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act of 2013 would also implement the common securitization platform that Fannie and Freddie are building under the direction of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The legislation would put...