During testimony this week before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, housing trade association representatives warned lawmakers that the current efforts to wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must not disrupt the already fragile housing and secondary mortgage markets. National Association of Home Builders First Vice Chairman Barry Rutenberg told Senators that Fannie and Freddie should neither be converted to government agencies nor should their functions be completely turned over to the private market. Instead. NAHB supports making major changes in the structure and operations of the secondary mortgage market not unlike...

Industry groups urged policymakers to use caution in considering legislation to reduce FHA loan limits, require higher downpayments and make further changes to mortgage insurance premiums. In testimony before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing and Economic Opportunity this week, officials of the mortgage banking and housing industries supported efforts to reform the FHA, Ginnie Mae and the Rural Housing Service to restore stability and strength to the housing sector. But such reforms should strike the proper balance between prudent risk management and providing credit assistance to qualified borrowers, they said. The hearing was called...

The head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency urged House Republican sponsors of various bills aimed at reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to include the government-sponsored enterprises’ regulator as part of the solution to avoid the problem of the two sides working at cross purposes. “FHFA and the enterprises are facing challenging times as Congress considers legislation to restrict, transform and wind down the enterprises,” said Edward DeMarco, acting director of the FHFA, during a hearing in the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and GSEs this week. “During this period, I respectfully ask that...

California Attorney General Kamala Harris this week announced a new mortgage-fraud investigating force to monitor and prosecute deviations from the mortgage processes required by law. The new group, called the California Attorney General’s Mortgage Fraud Strike Force, will be composed of attorneys and investigators from the state Department of Justice (both civil and criminal), and will oversee processes such as mortgage loan origination and the way mortgage-backed securities are marketed to investors. “We will work to safeguard the homeowner at every step of the process – from origination of a loan to its securitization – and we will...

Florida. The state legislature recently passed SB 1613, which allows licensed loan originators to work as contract loan processors or in-house loan processors, but includes in-house loan processors in certain disciplinary provisions...

There is "not even a whiff of a hint of a compromise" between Congressional Republicans and President Obama and his fellow Democrats in Congress over the possible appointment of Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren to be director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to some industry insiders...

Congressional Republicans are doing just about everything they can- short of calling on U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6 - to weaken, throttle, starve or deep-six the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau before it gets up to full speed...

A handful of Congressional Democrats aren't letting the prospect that legislation they are sponsoring may go nowhere in committee keep them from trying to toughen the terms of the regulatory debate over national servicer standards...

Consumer advocates called on Congress to extend national mortgage servicing standards to all servicers, including those of government-insured home loans. Testifying before the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation and Community Development recently, Diane Thompson, of counsel to the National Consumer Law Center, said loans made by the FHA, the VA and the Rural Housing Services are generally aimed at ...