In response to a question about Fannie's capital buffer, Mayopoulos said, “It’s our mission to provide liquidity in all markets at all times and we’re continuing to do that. I am glad to see that policy makers are starting to refocus on housing market reform including the lack of capital at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

The House Financial Services Committee this week approved legislation that would allow the White House to fire the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency at will and allow Congress to set the agency’s annual budget. Those provisions are included in the CHOICE Act, a Republican bill that would make sweeping changes to the Dodd-Frank Act. While the legislation is expected eventually to be cleared by the full House on a partisan vote, its fate in the Senate is murkier. FHFA Director Mel Watt’s term as chief regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ends...

The vacancy rate across single-borrower, single-family rental securitizations rated by Morningstar Credit Ratings fell to its lowest level in a year, as high retention rates for full-term leases kept performance in the sector within expectations, according to a company report. The vacancy rate dropped to 4.1 percent in March, driven by an improving average retention rate, which rose for the third consecutive month, the report said. The average retention rate for all single-borrower, single-family rental securitizations now stands at 79.5 percent, it noted. In addition, the overall turnover rate held...

One fact seems certain: there are more purchasers for non-agency/nonprime loans than a year ago with a handful of foreign and even U.S. banks contemplating acquisitions…

The FHFA was created in part because its predecessor, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, was widely seen as lacking enough independence to adequately oversee the GSEs...

FHFA Special Advisor Bob Ryan noted: “I’m encouraged by the attention to this…”

Bank of America is retaining more of its GSE-eligible loans, though the strategy can result in short-term decreases to mortgage-banking income.

Perhaps the new Treasury secretary finally looked at the numbers, realizing that Fannie and Freddie – wards of the government since September 2008 – forked over roughly $20 billion to Uncle Sam…

Since the fall of 2008, Treasury has controlled the senior preferred stock in Freddie and Fannie, making the U.S. government the de facto owner of the two - and the linchpin to the housing and mortgage markets.

S&P said the revisions are intended to better reflect the evolution of the U.S. residential mortgage market over the past several years…