A new regulatory relief bill drafted by Sen. Richard Shelby, R-AL, would guarantee that the common securitization platform project managed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be open to all MBS issuers “as soon as practicable,” and structured as a nonprofit utility. The legislation, which also expands the risk-transfer activities of the two government-sponsored enterprises, lays the groundwork for the CSP being transferred away from the GSEs and managed by a third-party provider. But that doesn’t mean...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is drawing flak after asking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac CEOs to submit executive compensation analyses that could significantly boost pay for top management at the government-sponsored enterprises. The FHFA capped Fannie and Freddie CEO salaries at $600,000 in 2012, but FHFA Director Mel Watt wants to change that. In its first-quarter earnings statement, Freddie revealed that the regulator asked the GSEs’ boards to review CEO compensation. Rep. Ed Royce, R-CA, doesn’t...

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray continues to tell the mortgage industry and its allies in Congress that the CFPB will not look the other way while the industry grapples with implementation of the integrated mortgage disclosure rule. The director’s latest official rebuff was delivered in a recent letter to Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-MO, who has been pressing the director for some kind of an enforcement grace period. Cordray historically has been...

Realtors want Congress to tackle reform of the government-sponsored enterprises, but they are keenly aware of the huge difficulties facing the effort, according to participants at this week’s annual legislative conference held by the National Association of Realtors. “I think what we want to get through to people in Congress is that these [GSE] programs were designed to be around and to be effective in times of a recession and prosperity in every single section of the country. That’s what they were there to do,” said Jerry Giovaniello, NAR’s senior vice president of government affairs. He said...

Despite the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s misgivings about Property Assessed Clean Energy programs, ABS issuers are finding investors for deals backed by these loans. Since March 2014, three rated residential ABS transactions and one private unrated commercial deal backed by PACE assessments have been issued for a combined total of $503.65 million. All three residential ABS deals were rated “AA,” with average assessments totaling $59,628. The PACE program was launched in 2008 by the city of Berkeley, CA, as a pilot to promote energy efficiency in residential, commercial, agricultural and industrial properties...

A bill to redirect all 2016 funds from the Housing and Urban Development’s National Housing Trust Fund, which currently receives money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to HUD’s HOME Investment Partnerships Program, was approved by a House subcommittee last week. Affordable housing advocates question the bill approved by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies. In essence, the bill was designed to cover a shortfall in the HOME program funding. Sheila Crowley, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said the bill “expresses a callous disregard for the plight of millions of Americans who labor in the low wage workforce and still cannot find modest housing they can afford to rent.”

Mortgage industry participants are encouraged by a bipartisan bill introduced in the House last week that would provide a temporary license for loan originators transitioning from a bank to a nonbank or between states. H.R. 2121, from Rep. Steve Stivers, R-OH, would change the Secure and Fair Enforcement for Mortgage Licensing Act to allow for a temporary transitional license and give loan originators 120 days to pass testing standards for nonbank LOs when transitioning from a bank or between states. “The SAFE Act inhibits...

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development this week approved a fiscal 2016 HUD appropriations bill, with language that would bar FHA, Ginnie Mae or HUD from deploying federal funds to foster the use of eminent domain to seize mortgages. “None of the funds made available in this act shall be used by [the three agencies] to insure, securitize or establish a federal guarantee of any mortgage or MBS that refinances or otherwise replaces a mortgage that has been subject to eminent domain condemnation or seizure, by a state, municipality or any other political subdivision of a state,” states Section 229 of the legislation. The Structured Finance Industry Group said...

Quicken Loan’s lawsuit against the government could help provide some certainty to lenders as to the proper legal standard for evaluating compliance with FHA rules and whether loan sampling is a permissible post-endorsement review strategy, according to legal experts. The adjudication of Quicken’s case against the Department of Justice in a public forum should clarify FHA policies, procedures, and the degree of future liability risks, experts said. Quicken Loans, the top FHA lender in 2014, sued the Department of Justice in federal court in Detroit April 17, accusing it of high-pressure tactics to admit wrongdoing and of using a small sample of flawed loans as a basis for claims under the False Claims Act. Up to that time, Quicken Loans had been the subject of an ongoing DOJ probe, which began three years earlier, in relation to its FHA lending practices. Quicken also asserted that, before filing its lawsuit ...

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-IA, chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, has asked the Department of Housing and Urban Development to explain the duties and functions of two officials who were appointed as “principal deputy assistant secretary.” The appointments make it appear that HUD is deliberately circumventing the nomination process by creating new official titles for appointees without obtaining Senate confirmation, said Grassley. If that is the case, HUD Secretary Julian Castro may be in violation of the Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, the lawmaker warned. The statute provides several mechanisms to fill job positions that require candidates to be nominated by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. “The Vacancies Act also declares that those mechanisms are the exclusive means of filling vacancies,” Grassley said. “Creating new job titles is not ...