The McGraw-Hill Companies announced it has tapped Freddie Mac’s former chief executive as the newest member of its board of directors. Charles Haldeman became the company’s 13th director last week after the company added a new seat to the board table. The rating agency Standard and Poor’s is part of the McGraw-Hill companies.

Fannie Mae will no longer purchase or securitize mortgages on properties encumbered by certain transfer fee covenants that were created on or after Feb. 8, 2011, under a new policy that goes live next week. The policy, which takes effect July 16, follows a rule finalized by the Federal Housing Finance Agency in March that prohibits Fannie, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks from taking on mortgages “encumbered by certain types of transfer fee covenants and related securities.” In light of the new policy, mortgages on affected properties must be purchased by Fannie as whole loans no later than July 13, 2012, or must be delivered by July 13 into MBS pools with issue dates before July 1, 2012.

Former Freddie Mac executive David Stevens had a change of heart and will not step down as the head of the Mortgage Bankers Association in order to take the number two job at SunTrust Mortgage as initially planned, much to the relief of industry observers. Stevens’ resignation as MBA president and CEO was to have taken effect June 30. However, the association declared on July 2 that Stevens would not relocate to SunTrust’s Richmond, VA, headquarters but rather remain ensconced in the MBA’s downtown DC corner office. On May 30, Stevens, 55, announced his resignation as the MBA’s head barely a year after he was recruited as a marquee player to revive the downsized and demoralized trade group.

Two of the three biggest barriers to a return of the non-agency mortgage sector – the premium capture cash reserve account and the qualified mortgage definition – are embedded in the Dodd-Frank Act, industry officials say. And the third is what’s not in the controversial law: any substantive reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The biggest challenge to reducing the government’s domination of the mortgage market is the lack of direction on the government-sponsored enterprises, said Tom Deutsch, executive director of the American Securitization Forum, during a hearing this week.

There is little to no chance of GSE reform bills moving any further in Congress during the remainder of the legislative year, say industry insiders who warn that the political priority for next year’s Congress will shift from restructuring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to scaling back the massive Dodd-Frank Act. For all the sound and fury surrounding Republican-led filing of 25 separate pieces of GSE legislation in the House and Senate during the 112th Congress, nearly all the bills, including six proposals considered “comprehensive” GSE reform, remain bottled up in committee.

The sooner the Federal Housing Finance Agency acts to clarify Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s positions on what triggers a loan repurchase request, the better it will be for lenders and for the recovery of the housing finance system, industry groups say. Over the past three years, the two GSEs have asked for more than $80 billion in flawed loan repurchases from lenders, prompting an overabundance of underwriting caution, according to Fitch Ratings. “Reduced uncertainty around the reasons as well as the timing and remedies available for repurchase may help ease lenders’ concerns and improve credit availability,” said Fitch. “Establishing clear and detailed repurchase standards, developing reporting and enforcement mechanisms and creating clear timelines that govern the process would be positive steps and would be welcome by lenders and investors alike.”

Freddie Mac announced this week that it has tapped a former JPMorgan Chase executive to serve as the GSE’s new head lawyer. William McDavid will start work next week as Freddie’s executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary. He replaces Alicia Myara, who has served as the GSE’s interim general counsel since November 2011. McDavid was co-general counsel for Chase from 2004 until he retired in 2006 and previously served solo as general counsel for several Chase predecessors going back to Chemical Bank in 1988.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency said last week it is ready to take its initiative to dispose of GSE and government-held real estate-owned properties to the next level, but a California House Republican is demanding the pilot program skip over his state. The FHFA announced it has chosen winning bidders in its REO pilot venture with the transactions expected to close early in the third quarter. Although the winning bidders weren’t publicly identified by the FHFA, the agency has declared this first round to be a success and is planning the next round of sales, according to FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco.

Despite the full implementation of the recently expanded Home Affordable Refinance Program in June and a refi boost that followed, Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s new volume declined during the second quarter of 2012, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis. Fannie and Freddie issued $273.95 billion in single-family mortgage backed securities during the second quarter, a 10.2 percent drop from the first three months of the year. Thanks to the huge $305.21 billion of GSE business during the first quarter, the market was still 39.3 percent ahead of the pace set during the first half of 2011.

As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau works to finalize its ability-to-repay qualified mortgage final rule by January, industry officials again called upon Congress to press the bureau to broadly structure the terms of a qualified mortgage and craft a well-defined ability-to-repay rule, along with a strong safe harbor to help provide legal certainty. John Hudson, chairman of government affairs for the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, told lawmakers that industry professionals and “every consumer wanting to participate in homeowner-ship supports common sense underwriting ...