If the Bipartisan Housing Finance Reform Act of 2018 becomes law, the common securitization platform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be transferred to a nonprofit “exchange” along with their automated underwriting systems, Desktop Underwriter and Loan Prospector, respectively. Among other things, the bill – introduced by Rep. Jeb Hensarling, -TX, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, would require that the AU systems “be made available for public use.”...

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, unveiled long-awaited legislation on government-sponsored enterprise reform that would enhance Ginnie Mae’s role in the secondary mortgage market. Hensarling referred to the bill – the Bipartisan Housing Reform Act of 2018 – as a “bipartisan compromise housing-reform plan” that preserves the government guarantee in the secondary mortgage market. The chairman collaborated with Rep. John Delaney, D-MD, in crafting the bill, which calls for the repeal of the federal charters of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The bill would shift the secondary market to a system that allows pooling of qualified conventional mortgages backed by government-approved private guarantors with regulated capital. These loans could be pooled in mortgage-backed securities with explicit government guarantees provided by Ginnie. The new MBS program would be ...

Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, late this week finally unveiled his long-awaited housing-finance reform proposal, calling for a repeal of the federal charters of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The 10-year anniversary of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac entering conservatorship prompted an effusion of words regarding housing-finance reform and a draft of a new bipartisan bill in the House. It remains to be seen whether any of the talk turns into action in Congress, though administrative reform via the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Treasury Department remains a possibility. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee ...

Almost 30 housing and mortgage-related organizations midweek issued an open letter to the White House and Congress, asking that policymakers make permanent several changes to operations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, fearing that the “stability” of the U.S. housing market is “illusory.”

Self-employed borrowers that can’t qualify for non-agency qualified mortgages could see relief from a bill introduced in the Senate last week.

New housing finance structures created to increase private capital would leave borrowers with slightly higher interest rates but greatly reduce federal costs, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office. The report examined several structures, ranging from a fully federal guarantee on mortgage-backed securities to a largely private market. On a “fair value” basis, it will cost the federal government $19 billion over the next 10 years to backstop an estimated $12 trillion in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities. The CBO notes the cost “represents the estimated amount that the government would have to pay private guarantors to bear the credit risk of the new guarantees.”

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should focus on things like cash flow projections, diversified funding and identifying potentially adverse events to manage their liquidity risk, according to a new advisory bulletin issued late this month by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

The Internal Revenue Service published a proposed rule this month to help determine who’s eligible for a new 20.0 percent tax deduction for pass-through entities. Lenders that retain their production in portfolio look to be eligible for the deduction but there’s uncertainty about businesses that originate and sell loans.

CFPB Announces HMDA File Format Verification Tool and New 2017 Dataset. The CFPB earlier this month released the 2018 File Format Verification Tool (FFVT) which tests whether HMDA reporters’ files meet certain formatting requirements needed to submit data to the HMDA platform. Specifically, the FFVT will test whether the file is pipe-delimited, has the proper number of data fields, and has data fields formatting as integers, where necessary ... [Includes three briefs]