Several trade groups, investors and analysts quickly issued their take on Watt’s comments, but there were some notables missing in action: Pershing Square and Fairholme.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are soliciting industry feedback on a proposal designed to make their mainstay credit-risk transfer deals more accessible for real estate investment trusts and, to a lesser extent, overseas investors. REITs have nibbled at the CRT debt notes issued by the two government-sponsored enterprises over the past few years, but restrictions on their holdings of so-called non-REIT assets have limited their involvement. The GSEs, with the backing of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, have come up...
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt is prepared to allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to build some type of capital buffer to avoid a Treasury draw that could weaken investor confidence. But some lawmakers vehemently disagreed with his views during a hearing in the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee this week. Watt reiterated his concern about the declining capital buffer, which is scheduled to reach zero by 2018 under the preferred stock purchase agreements that set the terms of the conservatorships of the two government-sponsored enterprises. With no capital buffer, Fannie and Freddie would be forced...
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continued to shrink their retained investment portfolios in the first quarter of this year by focusing on paring their MBS holdings. The two government-sponsored enterprises held a combined $560.04 billion in their retained mortgage portfolios at the end of March. That was down 1.9 percent from the previous period and 16.7 percent below year-ago levels. At their current pace, Fannie and Freddie are...[Includes one data table]
Nonprime mortgages held by the government-sponsored enterprises continued a gradual decline in the first quarter of 2017, according to an analysis by Inside Nonconforming Markets. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac held nonprime mortgages with a total unpaid principal balance of $133.89 billion at the end of the quarter, down 5.3 percent from the end of 2016 and down 22.1 percent from the first quarter of last year. The holdings are largely ... [Includes one data chart]