Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt has been under a lot of scrutiny as his tenure winds down by yearend. Some observers claim the FHFA is allowing the GSEs to introduce pilot programs that conflict with the primary market. There is a sexual harassment allegation against Watt. And he is reportedly being investigated for intimidating the agency’s inspector general....

Freddie Mac launched a new pilot program geared toward keeping rents affordable for low-income and working families.The Mezzanine Loan program is different from other affordable housing efforts because it’s strictly voluntary and will offer lower cost financing to multifamily borrowers who agree to cap their rent increases for the life of the loan....

Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America were the top producers of jumbo loans in the second quarter…

But we will remind readers that wholesalers refinancing clients (via a retail arm) originally brought to them by a broker is a decades-old complaint…

The government-sponsored enterprises’ new high loan-to-value refinance options will kick into gear for applications received on or after November 1. These programs serve as a replacement for the popular Home Affordable Refinance Program set to expire at the end of the year.

On July 23rd, Fannie announced Mayopoulos would depart as CEO before yearend. The heavily redacted FHFA IG report is dated July 26.

We know of one large subservicer that’s for sale (Ditech Financial), but a second processor may also be considering offers.

Fannie and Freddie stopped acquiring nonprime mortgages during the financial crisis, but they haven’t completely avoided the loans...

Mayopoulos didn’t even earn a performance bonus in 2017, despite a companywide pre-tax profit of $18.4 billion.

The top five sellers of bulk agency product during the first-half of 2018 were Stearns Lending, Flagstar Bank, Seneca Mortgage, United Shore Financial (parent of United Wholesale Mortgage), and loanDepot.