Rep. Maxine Waters, the first woman and first African-American to chair the House Financial Services Committee, comes to power in a particularly partisan climate. The Democrat from California officially took the gavel on Jan. 3, when the 116th Congress convened.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association held a meeting last month to discuss the rollout of the uniform mortgage-backed security.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency last week announced revisions to its final rules pertaining to capital requirements for Federal Home Loan Banks.

At 21 days, the current government shutdown ties for the longest on record, and its impact on the GSEs and housing finance remains fluid.

Freddie Mac last week announced the creation of its latest vehicle for credit risk transfer — the Multifamily Credit Insurance Pool.

Merchant Capital, an affordable housing lender based in Carmel, IN, announced in late December that it used Freddie Mac’s first official non-LIHTC forward commitment to secure financing for a $19.7 million workforce housing development in Rochester, MN.

Last August, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac said they were ending their pilot programs in the single-family rental market after the Federal Housing Finance Agency determined that the market could get along just fine without the GSEs’ help. But that didn’t stop Freddie from issuing a whitepaper last month that takes a deep dive into the rapidly changing world of SFR.

Fannie Mae has revised the maximum number of allowable days for routine foreclosure proceedings in 20 jurisdictions. For servicers in 16 states plus New York City, the number of days has been increased, while in three states the permitted time frame has been decreased.

The country’s fourth-largest subservicer, Mr. Cooper, will purchase IBM’s mortgage servicing subsidiary Seterus. The deal, expected to close in the first quarter of 2019, will give Mr. Cooper servicing rights to $24 billion in GSE mortgages as well as subservicing contracts for another $24 billion in loans. In addition, Mr. Cooper will acquire Seterus’ mortgage servicing platform.

Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting early this week became the second member of the Trump administration to simultaneously run two federal agencies when he took charge as acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.