The average daily trading volume in agency MBS fell to $189.4 billion in March, the lowest reading of the year, and a sign that liquidity may still be an issue, depending on which seat you’re in. According to figures compiled by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the trading numbers for 2016, so far, haven’t exactly lit the world on fire. In January and February, the readings were $195.1 billion and $201.4 billion, respectively. Last year, the best reading was...

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs signaled this week that Congress is unlikely to take up comprehensive legislation to reform the government-sponsored enterprises before the presidential election this fall. Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-AL, asked the Government Accountability Office to publish a report on a variety of issues involving the GSEs and their potential future structure by Nov. 1. Shelby’s deadline could be ambitious for such a complex issue: a report published last week by the GAO on issues with nonbank mortgage servicers was requested back in October 2014. The timeline suggests...

Last week, the House Financial Services Committee approved H.R. 1486, the Taking Account of Bureaucrats’ Spending Act, or TABS Act, which would subject the CFPB to the congressional appropriations process, ostensibly to make the bureau more accountable to taxpayers, and more vulnerable to political opponents, according to supporters of the consumer regulator. “Every government agency should be accountable to the elected representatives of ‘We the People’ and the CFPB should not be an exception to that rule,” said Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX. “We have the Pentagon which is on budget. We have the Justice Department which is on budget,” he added. “There is certainly no greater duty we have than to provide for the common defense, and we do not ...

Republican and Democrat members of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee were at odds during a hearing this week over whether there is much of a liquidity problem in the fixed-income markets today, and if so, to what extent the Dodd-Frank Act or Federal Reserve monetary policy may be responsible. Federal regulators, on the other hand, told the lawmakers that markets are functioning well enough and still evolving in a new, post-crisis environment. They suggested the thing to worry about is how much liquidity there will be in five or 10 years and how it will function. Sen. Dean Heller, R-NV, asked...

Housing policy experts at a Washington, DC, forum this week were generally supportive of renewed efforts to address the quagmire in which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been stuck for over eight years, but there was less evidence of movement to expand the credit box. A group of high-profile policy experts led by Urban Institute Senior Fellow Jim Parrott recently tried to re-ignite the mortgage reform effort by calling for the merger of the two government-sponsored enterprises and providing an explicit government guarantee for the new entity’s mortgage-backed securities with private capital taking the first loss. Barry Zigas, director of housing policy at the Consumer Federation of American and one of the co-authors of the paper, said...

Mortgage lending allies, free-market advocates and Congressional critics of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau this week took issue with some of the CFPB’s most significant mortgage rules and its use of regulatory enforcement actions to establish policy they said would be more appropriately set in the traditional public notice and comment process. Former Federal Trade Commission official Todd Zywicki, now a law professor at George Mason University, told members of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee that many smaller banks have chosen to exit the mortgage market rather than bear the regulatory cost and risk associated with complying with the numerous mortgage regulations promulgated by the CFPB. Citing a survey of small banks conducted by GMU’s Mercatus Center, Zywicki said...

Congress should consider whether additional changes to the federal financial regulatory structure are needed to reduce or better manage fragmentation and overlap in the oversight of financial institutions and activities to improve the consistency of consumer protections, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. “For example, Congress could consider ... transferring the remaining prudential regulators’ consumer protection authorities over large depository institutions to the CFPB ... among other considerations,” the report stated. One of the concerns GAO raised is that a federal financial regulatory system with multiple regulators can result in inefficient and inconsistent safety and soundness and consumer protection oversight, with negative consequences for industry players. “While Congress addressed some of our concerns through consolidating rulemaking ...

Housing advocates and civil rights groups laud the GSEs’ first payment, $180 million, to the National Housing Trust Fund in years. It’s part of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s efforts to support underserved markets through affordable housing, which organizations have long been calling for. But many are also worried about what the future holds for the GSEs. Wade Henderson, President and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights calls it “another significant measure taken by FHFA Director Mel Watt to shore up the commitments made to communities of color that expand affordable and sustainable housing finance.” He added that strengthening...

Five mortgage industry veterans – including two who worked in the Obama White House – this week floated a new plan aimed at preserving the government guaranty on conventional MBS and ending, once and for all, the uncertainly plaguing the secondary market. In a new white paper entitled “A More Promising Road to GSE Reform,” the authors aim to preserve the government-backed MBS market while merging Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into a new institution called the National Mortgage Reinsurance Corp. But the proposal might be...

The Department of Veterans Affairs has issued additional lender guidance for dealing with the public water contamination problem in Flint, MI. The guidance expands on the agency’s minimum requirements for properties backed by VA loans. The guidance refers to policy in the VA Lender’s Handbook which requires properties to have “a continuing supply of safe and potable water for drinking and other household uses,” before being approved for a VA-backed home loan. In the VA’s view, safe and potable water also refers to water used for bathing, showering and sanitary uses. Properties not in compliance with this requirement will not be eligible for the VA guaranty. Proper mitigation of lead-contaminated water must include a central filtering system that is acceptable to local health authorities and that can provide safe and potable water. Appraisers must comment and adjust for any ...