Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt said one of the challenges of being in a decade-long conservatorship is the inability to make strategic decisions on everyday operations. And it doesn’t look like that problem will be solved anytime soon. During a Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs hearing this week, he said the decision to relocate Fannie Mae’s headquarters is an example of trying to make decisions for the GSEs amid an uncertain future. “Without looking somewhat down the road, FHFA and the enterprises would both lose their momentum and jeopardize day-to-day success.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, said he plans to examine media reports alleging that Fannie Mae violated restrictions by participating in lobbying efforts. Fannie Mae denied the claims. Last week, Fannie’s general counsel, Brian Brooks, was accused of meeting with members of the executive branch to discuss housing-finance reform. Hensarling said if the report that was published in Bloomberg is accurate, high-ranking Fannie employees have been intentionally violating their government prohibition on lobbying through a series of “secret” meetings to remove the GSE from conservatorship. “If true, this violation is more than an outrage, it is a direct affront on taxpayers and the current structure of the federally-backed conservatorship that has allowed Fannie Mae to operate for the last decade,” said Hensarling.

Community mortgage lenders want the Federal Housing Finance Agency to put an end to pricing disparities caused by mortgage insurers offering discounts to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lenders based on their size or volume. And they recommend doing so in the same manner the agency solved pricing disparities over guarantee fees. The Community Home Lenders Association wrote the FHFA last week requesting that Director Mel Watt investigate the practice that the trade group says has become more prevalent. CHLA said it puts small lenders and their borrowers at a disadvantage. As a result, some individual CHLA members are even boycotting private MIs that engage in volume discounts.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency seeks oversight of counterparties that provide services to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks, according to its 2017 annual report to Congress published this week. In addition to reporting examination activity, the FHFA offers legislative recommendations. The agency discussed the regulated entities’ heavy involvement with third parties who provide “critical services” supporting the secondary mortgage market. The agency said this includes nonbank mortgage servicers for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And while oversight of these counterparties is important to the safety and soundness of the GSEs, the FHFA argued that oversight can only happen now through contractual provisions.

The GSEs recently released their plans to improve the mortgage process for borrowers who have a limited proficiency of English and some point to disclosures as being a critical element of the plan. The Federal Housing Finance Agency has asked Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to identify language barrier obstacles for potential borrowers, and come up with possible solutions. The agency’s plan established milestones with start dates this year through 2020. Fannie and Freddie are spending the first half of 2018 defining roles and responsibilities for both a resource clearinghouse and a language access working group consisting of housing representatives to work with consumer groups that support LEP consumers.

GSE shareholder litigation activity continues into mid-year with two new cases being filed in the past week. Joshua Angel, a corporate restructuring lawyer and owner of junior preferred stock, filed a lawsuit this week to sue Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and their respective board of director members who were serving on Aug. 17, 2012, when the Treasury sweep was formalized. Angel seeks to recover damages from the defendants for his pro-rated share of the $10 billion dividend entitlement loss he and other junior preferred shareholders have incurred to date.

Housing-finance reform may want to take some cues from the mortgage-finance system in Denmark, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in a new report comparing and contrasting the two systems. In fact, the creditor-friendliness of the Danish system means that relatively more price risk is borne by the homeowner. One of the bases for NY Fed’s recommendation is that, unlike in the U.S., the Danish system remained stable and solvent during the 2007-2009 financial crisis. And, despite falling home prices, the Danish system didn’t require government intervention or funding. The authors chose that system because they said it’s most similar to the model in the U.S.

Treasury Official Sees Major Impact from Single Security. A key Treasury Department official suggested that issuers of non-agency MBS may someday participate in the common securitization platform being developed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Craig Phillips, counselor to the Treasury, said the industry has made a lot of progress toward the launch of the single security that is scheduled for June 2019. “Industry preparedness is about an eight or nine on a scale of 10,” he said during remarks at this week's secondary market conference sponsored by the Mortgage Bankers Association in New York. Phillips characterized the...

Sen. Bob Corker, R-TN, said passing legislation this year “evidently is not going to happen” and his sense is that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will stay in conservatorship “for some time.”

Many industry observers are bracing for significant change in the roles of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as Congress has failed again to tackle the problem. But some analysts believe the Trump administration will steer away from policy changes that would rile major business constituencies and slow down a major component of the economy.