During the first quarter, the average credit score at Fannie Mae was 741.15, slightly below the average 744.73 at Freddie Mac.

However, Freddie still has some catching up to do to reach the 40.2 percent GSE share it had last year.

Freddie Mac posted a big increase in its single-family mortgage-backed securities activity in April, reclaiming some market share from Fannie Mae, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis of MBS disclosure data. Freddie issued $26.08 billion of single-family securities last month, a hefty 22.9 percent jump from March. [Includes two data charts.]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency went into more detail this week about the steps it is taking to make sure Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac prepayment rates are fairly congruent. And when the difference between the GSEs’ prepayment rates spreads beyond two percentage points, it must be reported to the FHFA’s Single Security Governance Committee for an explanation and remedial actions.

The biggest factor in the small uptick was the significant growth in the two largest ABS portfolios in the industry...

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt said one of the challenges of being in a decade-long conservatorship is the inability to make strategic decisions on everyday operations. And it doesn’t look like that problem will be solved anytime soon. During a Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs hearing this week, he said the decision to relocate Fannie Mae’s headquarters is an example of trying to make decisions for the GSEs amid an uncertain future. “Without looking somewhat down the road, FHFA and the enterprises would both lose their momentum and jeopardize day-to-day success.

In an effort to get mortgage-backed securities investors comfortable with the upcoming launch of the uniform MBS, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are continuously monitoring their prepayment rates to make sure there’s no divergence between the two, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency.The FHFA published its inaugural prepayment report this week, increasing transparency ahead of the launch of the UMBS in June 2019. The report will be released on a quarterly basis. With the UMBS, the FHFA wants to ensure that there’s general alignment on the prepayments and noted that consistency is important to the efficiency and liquidity of the secondary mortgage market.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, said he plans to examine media reports alleging that Fannie Mae violated restrictions by participating in lobbying efforts. Fannie Mae denied the claims. Last week, Fannie’s general counsel, Brian Brooks, was accused of meeting with members of the executive branch to discuss housing-finance reform. Hensarling said if the report that was published in Bloomberg is accurate, high-ranking Fannie employees have been intentionally violating their government prohibition on lobbying through a series of “secret” meetings to remove the GSE from conservatorship. “If true, this violation is more than an outrage, it is a direct affront on taxpayers and the current structure of the federally-backed conservatorship that has allowed Fannie Mae to operate for the last decade,” said Hensarling.

Community mortgage lenders want the Federal Housing Finance Agency to put an end to pricing disparities caused by mortgage insurers offering discounts to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lenders based on their size or volume. And they recommend doing so in the same manner the agency solved pricing disparities over guarantee fees. The Community Home Lenders Association wrote the FHFA last week requesting that Director Mel Watt investigate the practice that the trade group says has become more prevalent. CHLA said it puts small lenders and their borrowers at a disadvantage. As a result, some individual CHLA members are even boycotting private MIs that engage in volume discounts.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency seeks oversight of counterparties that provide services to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks, according to its 2017 annual report to Congress published this week. In addition to reporting examination activity, the FHFA offers legislative recommendations. The agency discussed the regulated entities’ heavy involvement with third parties who provide “critical services” supporting the secondary mortgage market. The agency said this includes nonbank mortgage servicers for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And while oversight of these counterparties is important to the safety and soundness of the GSEs, the FHFA argued that oversight can only happen now through contractual provisions.