It’s likely that provisions to automatically designate residential loans held in portfolio as qualified mortgages will be included in a legislative package...
Firms hoping that new guaranty fee and loan-level price adjustments promulgated by the Federal Housing Finance Agency might boost the jumbo MBS market were sorely disappointed when the final details were released by the agency late last week. One executive who works for a real estate investment trust that issues jumbos said it’s clear to him that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are continuing to “misprice” their g-fees. He would love...
The Federal Housing Finance Agency late last week directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to stop charging the 25 basis point “adverse market” fee assessed on all loans since the financial crises, but most lower-risk loans won’t get any reduction in loan-level pricing adjustments. As expected, the FHFA did not make any changes to the “base” guaranty fees charged by the two government-sponsored enterprises. Current fees, on average, are at an “appropriate” level. “We are going to monitor this on an ongoing or quarterly basis and we’ll adjust based on market conditions,” said Sandra Thompson, FHFA’s deputy director. The regulator instructed...
Then there was Bert Ely who noted: "In my opinion, American housing policy is leading the country down the same path that led to the last housing bubble..."