The “public voice” of the Federal Home Loan Bank system is calling on policymakers to remember the 12 regional banks as proposals are considered to restructure the nation’s housing finance system. A recently issued one-page “position paper” by the Council of Federal Home Loan Banks lists a set of nine positions the 12 have collectively adopted to remind official Washington that the system has “operated prudently and served as a mechanism for economic stability” for more than 80 years.

GSEs Issue Government Shutdown Guidance. Freddie Mac this week followed Fannie Mae in issuing new, temporary guidelines to servicers and sellers of single-family mortgages as the nation began its second week of the government shutdown. The GSEs have temporarily revised their selling guidelines to permit lenders to verify Social Security and IRS transcripts after the closing but before the delivery date of the loan.“Servicers can offer unemployment forbearance to borrowers that have a financial hardship as a result of the shutdown and must suspend credit reporting for those borrowers,” said Fannie.

Over the past year, some lenders have complained privately about the presence of enforcement attorneys during examinations, telling Inside Mortgage Finance that it can be intimidating to staff.

Peters Sack of Credit Suisse said the bank portfolio bid is currently much stronger than the economics for issuing jumbo MBS.

As usual, the Federal Housing Finance Agency provided as little detail as possible in its new disclosures on the common securitization platform.

PHH is the latest top ten-ranked residential lender to unveil mortgage layoffs. The workers were given 60-days notice.

Wells Fargo and Bank of America rank first and second, respectively, among bank home equity lenders, according to exclusive rankings from Inside Mortgage Finance.

In light of the court decision in the overtime pay case, the government must either appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court or start a formal rulemaking process to withdraw the 2006 opinion.

Some lenders have vowed to close loans without IRS verifications, filling the void by asking for additional and in-depth documentation – but only on retail-sources mortgages.

A Manhattan federal judge last week rebuffed a motion by a number of major lenders to dismiss a bid by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. against the firms in connection with $388 million of non-agency MBS sold to the now-defunct Colonial Bank. The FDIC filed its complaint in August 2012, alleging that the defendants – including JPMorgan, CitiGroup, Ally Securities, First Horizon, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo – placed poor-quality loans in the 11 underlying residential MBS and then misled investors by marking them as safe investments. Montgomery, AL-based Colonial Bank failed...