Private mortgage insurers are moving to adopt policies to fit with the recently expanded Home Affordable Refinance Program offered by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Genworth Financial said that it’s all in, announcing last week that its U.S. mortgage insurance business is making changes so it can fully support HARP 2.0. The upgraded changes to HARP from the two government-sponsored enterprises are designed to enable more underwater borrowers to refinance their residential mortgages at today’s record-low interest rates. Genworth says the changes...

For an all too brief moment last week there was bipartisanship on Capitol Hill as exasperated Democrats and Republicans took turns questioning and berating the CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their regulator surrounding the issue of executive compensation at the two GSEs.Federal Housing Finance Agency Acting Director Edward DeMarco was called before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to explain some $13 million in performance bonuses to Fannie CEO Michael Williams and Freddie CEO Charles Haldeman and eight other senior executives at the taxpayer-subsidized firms.

Details about the revised Home Affordable Refinance Program revealed few surprises in the seller-servicer bulletins issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last week with only a modest expansion in program activity expected.Among the noteworthy revisions under HARP 2.0, Fannie and Freddie have eliminated the existing cap on loan-to-value ratio, relaxed representation and warranty stipulations and reduced loan-level price adjustments for most HARP loans.

Freddie Mac is unwrapping a new set of incentives for its HomeSteps properties to both homebuyers and real estate agents this winter in an effort to pick up the sales pace of the GSE’s real-estate owned inventory.Through January 31, 2012, Freddie is offering homebuyers up to 3 percent of the final sales price toward closing costs while selling agents representing the owner-occupant buyer would receive a $1,000 bonus under the incentive plan.

Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac retained their hefty shares of mortgage-backed securities with something of a bump during the third quarter of 2011, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis.The GSEs issued a combined $174.8 billion in MBS in the third quarter, a 12.8 percent increase from the second quarter. Compared to the third quarter of 2010, Fannie and Freddie saw an 11.2 percent decrease in MBS issuance during the first nine months of the year.

Total single-family originations could drop another 20 percent or more in 2012, following a similar decline this year, according to mortgage industry economists. The consensus forecast from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Mortgage Bankers Association is that $1.28 trillion in home loans will be originated in 2011, a decline of 22 percent from last year’s estimated volume. But 2011 will prove to be just a prelude to another sharp decline in production next year. Despite the fact that mortgage rates are expected to stay at...

Freddie Mac this week announced a new class of single-family MBS backed by mortgages previously repurchased from MBS because they were in serious delinquency. Both government-sponsored enterprises began aggressively buying seriously delinquent loans out of their MBS trusts at the beginning of 2010 because new accounting rules required them to consolidate all their outstanding MBS on their balance sheets. Buying the distressed loans out of the MBS trusts had no impact on their financial accounting, but it allowed them to better manage...

Although some changes under the revised Home Affordable Refinance Program will take effect as early as next month, key features such as automated underwriting and new securitization executions will not be available until well into 2012. Observers found no surprises in the HARP 2.0 seller-servicer bulletins issued this week by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and most expect only a modest expansion in program activity. In many cases, the new rules reflect a standardization of the existing programs offered by the government-sponsored enterprises. Among the new changes are a lifting of the existing 125 percent...

Slashing the pay of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives would almost certainly lead to an accelerated brain drain and increased losses that would have to be covered by taxpayers, said the heads of the two government-sponsored enterprises and their regulator during hearings on Capitol Hill this week. It’s a tough sell. The House Financial Services Committee this week approved legislation to suspend bonus payments to top GSE officials and move Fannie and Freddie to a government pay scale. Federal Housing Finance Agency Acting Director Edward DeMarco appeared before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban...