Texas was the second largest source of Fannie/Freddie business during the first half, accounting for 7.3 percent of the market.

By extending the comment period, it’s likely that lenders will have at least 120 days before any g-fee hikes are installed.

The Fannie-BofA squabble was tied to repurchase claims surrounding the bank’s legacy book of business, largely involving loans produced by Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch.

In mid-July senior White House staff, Treasury officials and the staffers from the Council of Economic Advisers met with representatives from a number of industry trade groups to discuss housing finance reform.

"There are plenty of small deals out there," said one mortgage analyst, "but no big ones."

RPM Mortgage, one of the largest privately held nonbanks in California, has signed a new origination deal with Mechanics Bank, Walnut Creek, CA.

Nationstar Mortgage and Walter Investment are the only seller/servicers (counterparties) mentioned by name in the FHFA IG report on nonbank risk.

NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun: “The way they have raised premiums and fees – the way I view it and what I hear from Realtors – is essentially they are ripping off consumers. It’s almost as if HUD needs to be turned over to the CFPB to be investigated"...

The White House isn’t quite ready to pack it in on housing finance reform legislation this year, at least in the Senate, even as policymakers look ahead to take up the issue anew next year, say industry observers. The industry at large has all but written off the prospects of advancing a GSE reform bill in the 113th Congress following the bare minimum passage out of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee of S. 1217 by the committee’s chairman and ranking member Sens. Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Mike Crapo, R-ID.

A Fannie Mae real estate-owned contractor engaged in a “clear pattern” of neglecting Fannie-owned vacant foreclosed homes in black and latino neighborhoods compared to white neighborhoods in four different cities, according to a discrimination complaint filed with the Department of Housing and Urban Development this week. The National Fair Housing Alliance and two partners allege that Brandon, FL-based Cyprexx Services violated the federal Fair Housing Act by neglecting minority-owned Fannie REOs.