Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continued to lean heavily on their structured debt programs to meet credit-risk transfer goals originally set by their regulator that have become key features in their business strategies. The two government-sponsored enterprises issued $4.48 billion of credit-risk transfer debt during the second quarter, a modest 5.8 percent increase from the first three months of the year. Overall MBS issuance by the two GSEs was down during that period, but their CRT debt issuances are typically linked to MBS issued six months prior. Fannie’s Connecticut Avenue Securities program produced...[Includes one data table]
This year, nonprime production across the U.S. might top $3 billion to $4 billion at best. At its peak last decade, it was a $1 trillion a year business. That’s not a misprint…
Mortgage lenders that sell loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac opened the credit box slightly for refinance borrowers during the second quarter, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of mortgage-backed securities data. Some 24.8 percent of refinance loans securitized by the two government-sponsored enterprises during the second quarter had credit scores below 700. That was up from 22.6 percent in the previous period and just ... [Includes two data charts]
Watt, a former Congressman, wants Congress to reform the GSEs legislatively to solve their conservatorship status and find a path forward for the two enterprises.
The Department of Justice and three other federal agencies will rake in $182 million from separate agreements by Wells Fargo and PHH Mortgage over False Claims Act charges. The PHH settlement features a rare FCA action involving loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Wells Fargo agreed to pay $108 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2006 and unsealed in 2011. It alleged that the bank overcharged veterans by masking unallowable fees and concealing the fact in order to obtain VA guarantees for the mortgage loans. At the same time, Wells allegedly falsely certified to the VA that it was not charging improper fees. Similar charges were brought...
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt said it will be at least two years until Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will adopt alternative credit scoring models. A number of groups have been pushing the government-sponsored enterprises to look beyond the FICO score, and Fannie and Freddie have been studying the issue. But Watt said any major change will have to wait until the GSEs have completed the complex single-security project. “Based on the overwhelming feedback we have received from the industry, it is...
It’s safe to say that CFPB Director Richard Cordray has been one of the most controversial financial regulators to work in Washington, D.C. for quite some time...
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