Freddie Mac CEO Donald Layton will retire in the second half of next year, the GSE announced last week. This comes six weeks after Fannie CEO Timothy Mayopoulos announced his departure from the GSE. While Layton plans to be around through midyear 2019, Mayopoulos plans to leave his post before 2018 ends. This leaves both GSEs looking for replacements. Freddie’s board has started its succession plan to consider internal and external candidates. The GSE named David Brickman, executive vice president and head of Freddie’s multifamily business as a possibility.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should standardize their programs and policies that impact cash flows in preparation for the new Uniform Mortgage Backed Security, according to a proposed rule issued by the Federal Housing Finance Agency this week. The proposed rule incorporates recent input from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. The regulator noted that standardizing policies that affect cash flows to investors in to-be-announced MBS will benefit market participants and homeowners. “By instituting regulations that further standardize those products, the proposed rule and the UMBS would reduce complexity and the cost of analytics set to be introduced in the second quarter of 2019,” said the FHFA, adding that it will also help encourage a broader investor base.
If the Bipartisan Housing Finance Reform Act of 2018 becomes law, the common securitization platform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be transferred to a nonprofit “exchange” along with their automated underwriting systems, Desktop Underwriter and Loan Prospector, respectively. Among other things, the bill – introduced by Rep. Jeb Hensarling, -TX, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, would require that the AU systems “be made available for public use.”...
Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, released his much-anticipated proposal, the Bipartisan Housing Finance Reform Act of 2018, for housing-finance reform last week but industry observers say it has little or no chance of making any headway. In fact, Hensarling said if reform stalls in this Congress or the next, he would advocate for the administration to tackle reform when a new Federal Housing Finance Agency director is named in January. He released the “discussion draft” the day of a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Sept. 6, the 10-year anniversary of the conservatorship. The bill would transition to a system where qualified mortgages backed by government-approved guarantors with regulated capital can access the...
Single-family mortgage business at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac grew substantially from July to August, according to an Inside The GSEs analysis of mortgage-backed securities data. The two firms issued $79.34 billion of single-family MBS last month, a 20.5 percent increase from July’s volume. That brought year-to-date volume to $523.40 billion, down 6.1 percent from the first eight months of 2017. [Includes two data charts.]
Mortgage sellers repurchased just $226.8 million of defective single-family loans from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities during the second quarter, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis. It was one of the lowest quarterly buyback totals involving government-sponsored enterprise loans since Fannie and Freddie began disclosing this activity in early 2012. Repurchases – which include other forms of indemnification ... [Includes two data charts]
JPMorgan is the parent company of the nation’s second largest residential lender, Chase. Trump last decade started a small mortgage brokerage operation in Long Island and then killed it...
The Federal Housing Finance Agency this week moved to further cement its existing policies that require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to move in lockstep on matters that affect MBS prepayment speeds as a federal regulation.
A new Federal Housing Finance Agency inspector general report highlights some potential risks in Freddie Mac’s Integrated Mortgage Insurance, or IMAGIN, program. Although it discusses some of the criticism leveled at the program, the IG report doesn’t take sides.
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