Debt issuance for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks rose during the second quarter of 2011, while Freddie recorded a decline in new debt during the April to June period.The GSEs collectively issued $726.2 billion in new debt during the second quarter, a 2.6 percent increase from the previous quarter, while GSE debt outstanding at $2.168 trillion declined 4.8 percent from the first quarter.

The government will subsidize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac new business to the tune of about $51.0 billion over the next 10 years, according to the latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office.CBO’s most recent budget and economic outlook, released in late August, increased its estimate of the subsidy cost for the two GSEs during the period between 2012 to 2021 from the approximate $41.6 billion that the CBO forecast in June.

Several of the prudential management and operations standards recently proposed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency are “duplicative of, or conflict with, current regulatory requirements” and should be further refined before final issuance, according to a comment letter written by the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks.The FHLBanks suggest numerous and significant revisions or clarifications to the proposed rule the FHFA issued in June.

In a not unexpected development, PMI Mortgage Insurance has become the second mortgage insurer in less than a month to be suspended by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as an approved GSE mortgage insurer after the company announced state regulators placed PMI under a supervisory order.Mortgages insured by PMI Mortgage Insurance or its affiliates PMI Mortgage Insurance Co. (MIC) and PMI Insurance Co. (PIC) with notes before May 19, 2011, or after Sept. 16, 2011, will no longer be purchased or securitized by Fannie or Freddie, the GSEs announced separately last week.

The junior senator from California is making another public push to overhaul GSE refinance rules — this time by calling on the Federal Housing Finance Agency to immediately implement parts of her bill that would allow underwater borrowers to refi with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into a lower-rate loan.Last week, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-CA, sent FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco a letter urging the Finance Agency to take action on the parts of S.170 that can be implemented administratively.

President Barack Obama and his advisors are scrambling to come up with ways to push the halting U.S. economic recovery forward, including the possibility of a major government mortgage refinance plan to help bolster the housing market. In a recent report, Deutsche Bank analysts said the administration has three options: remove or reduce the loan-level price adjustments that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now charge...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac last week both “de-listed” PMI Mortgage Insurance Co. as an eligible private MI, a further blow to a private MI business that has been driven to the brink by the housing market collapse. Republic Mortgage Insurance Corp. was forced to stop writing new business this week as North Carolina regulators declined to extend a waiver of risk-capital ratios under which it had remained in the market. Together, PMI and RMIC accounted...

More than 20 percent of counties across the country will be affected by the scheduled decline in the FHA loan limits announced by the Department of Housing and Urban Development recently, with the fallout varying from one area to another. Announcing the new loan limits taking effect on Oct. 1, HUD said the change is expected to affect 669 counties, or 20.7 percent of the 3,234 jurisdictions in which FHA insures home loans. Despite dire warnings from mortgage industry groups, HUD estimates that only a fraction of borrowers living in high-cost areas would be impacted by the new loan limits. Last year, only 3 percent of FHA borrowers lived ... [Includes two data charts]

With confidence in economic recovery continuing to waver across the country, there’s been a revival of speculation about what the Obama administration’s next move will be in the housing market, given the industry’s substantial role in the economy and the upcoming presidential election. This week the Washington Post reported that the president called for a team of advisers to create a housing finance reform proposal that would allow the government to maintain its large role in the market and extend a federal loan subsidy for many borrowers. However, Neal Wolin, deputy secretary of the Treasury, was quick to ...

The consensus among mortgage market watchers is that the downgrade earlier this month of the GSEs by Standard & Poor’s will have no immediate, detrimental impact even as Fitch Ratings this week said it is keeping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s “AAA” rating.Fitch this week also said its outlook for Fannie and Freddie’s ratings remained “stable.” The move was in concert with Fitch’s decision to keep its rating on U.S. debt at the highest grade.“A key element of the explicit support is the guarantee by the U.S. Treasury to inject funds into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so that each firm can avoid being considered technically insolvent by their regulator,” said the rating agency.