Time is not a friend to the housing finance system so long as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac remain in government conservatorship with no endgame in sight, according to the former head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Former FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco, now a senior fellow in residence for the Milken Institute’s Center for Financial Markets, told attendees at this week’s Bipartisan Policy Council’s housing summit in Washington that the ongoing conservatorships of the two government-sponsored enterprises – now in the sixth year – will continue to distort the market and place taxpayers at risk. “The conservatorships are...

The FHFA partially agreed with the IG's first recommendation and flatly rejected the second.

Although there appears to be strong interest these days in mortgage banking firms, the outlook isn’t particularly bright for commercial banks.

“The conservatorships are a huge barrier to entry for private capital,” said former FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco.

The Mortgage Bankers Association wants the FHFA to push Fannie and Freddie to go easy on mortgage buybacks.

Is it time to sell shares in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

Ranieri and Goodman are worried that the creation of a single GSE security could morph into a drawn out and multi-year process.

Investors are paying up for distressed mortgages these days, fueling talk that the market might see more in the way of securitizations. “Buyers of non-performing loans want to securitize,” said Brian Dunn, senior vice president of MountainView Capital Group. “They like the [real estate mortgage investment conduit] structure.” According to Dunn, the securitization of nonperforming mortgages “has taken off...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s “single security” proposal for generic Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac MBS is “well-thought out” and “worthy of serious consideration,” but the agency should pick up the pace in its implementation to avoid making the solution part of the problem, according to a paper by the Urban Institute. Laurie Goodman, director of the UI’s Housing Policy Center, and Lewis Ranieri, chairman of Ranieri Partners, expressed concern that the FHFA “may be contemplating a slower pace in the project than it warrants.” The FHFA last month issued...

Six years after the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the former regulator of the government-sponsored enterprises noted that the housing finance system has made “significant progress.” But even as critical structural changes are underway, comprehensive improvement is still several years out. In a policy paper issued last week, Edward DeMarco – new senior fellow-in-residence for the Milken Institute’s Center for Financial Markets – said that house prices, as measured by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, have recovered more than 50 percent since their decline in 2007. “While the damage from the housing crisis has been substantial, we are finally seeing...