Borrowers in rural communities would suffer if the resolution of the limbo status of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac winds up creating more headwinds for community-based banking institutions.The Brookings Institute published a new report by the Center for Responsible Lending explaining how housing-finance reform proposals will profoundly affect lending in rural communities. The report said the GSE financing meets a critical need in rural areas, home to almost a quarter of the population and17.5 percent of mortgage loans in the U.S. In 2016, 30.3 percent of all loans originated in rural areas were sold to Fannie and Freddie, the CRL said.

In a joint brief filed this week, federal respondents took issue with arguments made by GSE shareholders in their fight against the net worth sweep and said a shareholder petition for a Supreme Court review of their case should not be granted. Shareholders in several cases filed three petitions for a writ of certiorari back in November. The plaintiffs asked the Supreme Court of the United States to intervene to “restore certainty and uniformity.” They claim that the Federal Housing Finance Agency acted unconstitutionally when it imposed the net worth sweep.

Freddie Mac Names Head of HR and Diversity. Freddie Mac announced that Jacqueline Welch has been named head of the Human Resources, Diversity & Inclusion (HRDI) division and chief diversity officer. In her expanded role as senior vice president of HRDI and CDO, Welch will be a member of the company’s senior operating committee and will report directly to Freddie Mac CEO Donald Layton. Welch joined Freddie in December 2016, and the GSE says she brings more than 20 years of experience in HR strategy and execution to the company. Chicago’s Bridgeview Bank Now Fannie Mae Approved. This week, Chicago-based Bridgeview Bank announced it has received Fannie Mae approval, which allows the company to expand its consumer home financing business.

Although the stars might be aligned for legislative reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac this year, new developments late this week illuminate the difficulty of the task at hand.

After their case against the Federal Housing Finance Agency was dismissed by the U.S. District Court for Delaware in November, government-sponsored enterprise shareholders David Jacobs and Gary Hindes recently filed an appeal.

Total non-mortgage ABS production climbed to $211.72 billion in 2017, the market’s strongest year for new issuance since 2007…

The lone bank bucking the trend was U.S. Bank, Minneapolis, which funded $12.5 billion, a 3.3 percent improvement from the prior period.

The plaintiffs argue that the GSEs and their private stockholders did not receive any consideration in exchange for the net worth sweep…

Despite a slowdown during its final lap, 2017 was a strong year for sales of agency mortgage servicing rights, according to a new analysis of mortgage-backed securities data by Inside Mortgage Trends.The market saw some $538.49 billion of agency servicing rights change hands last year, a 22.0 percent increase from 2016. Most of the MSR transfers were bulk transactions, which totaled $406.78 billion, a huge 51.1 percent jump from the previous year. Bulk deals ... [Includes three data charts]

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw a 27.2 percent surge in refinance business during the fourth quarter that helped offset an 8.3 percent drop in purchase-mortgage acquisitions, according to an Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of mortgage-backed securities data. The wholesale-broker channel recorded a 7.4 percent increase in production during the fourth quarter, compared to smaller increases in retail (2.6 percent) and correspondent (6.0 percent) ... [Includes one data chart]