In a straight, party-line vote, the Senate Thursday confirmed conservative economist Mark Calabria to be the next director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got proportionally more of their single-family business from large-volume sellers in the first quarter, although production was down sharply in every seller category. [Includes two data charts.]

Fannie Gets New Board Members; Freddie Announces $1.4 Billion K-Deal; Fannie Names New General Counsel.

A panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a ruling filed earlier this month, found that a reseller of mortgage loans could demand that an originator repurchase defective loans, even though the contract between the two companies did not prescribe a specific timeframe within which the originator must cure any defects. The decision reversed a lower court’s ruling.

Freddie Mac announced Thursday that current President David Brickman will get the nod to head the GSE. He will also take a seat on the board of directors. Donald Layton, the current CEO, will retire in July, as planned.

The Senate Banking Committee late Tuesday announced it will hold a pair of long rumored hearings next week to discuss the housing-reform outline released last month by Chairman Mike Crapo, R-ID. The hearings, which have been rumored for weeks, are scheduled for March 26 and March 27.

As usual, the Trump administration’s proposed annual budget appears to be dead on arrival. It simply steps on too many legislative toes. Among the issues the budget will face is how Congress reacts to its treatment of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Despite four years of effort by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, members of the Federal Home Loan Bank system have made only marginal improvements in diversity on their boards, according to a report released late last month by the Government Accountability Office.

A class action lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York late last month, alleges that several of the dominant dealers in the debt instruments of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac colluded in a systematic price-fixing scheme between at least January 1, 2009, and April 27, 2014.

There are some worrying trends buried in the tables of Freddie Mac’s quarterly refinance statistics for 2018. This, of course, is just a small slice of the economic pie, but the data have all the hallmarks of another housing bubble.