The decline was largely based on a seasonal slump in purchase-mortgage activity. Looking forward, primary-market indicators point to a solid increase in consumer demand.
The GSEs will publicly release their non-performing loan sales data for the first time, conclude their assessment of various credit scoring models and the FHFA will issue a request for input on front-end credit risk transfer transactions.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has dismissed an argument in a whistleblower case, ruling that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not “federal instruments” for the purposes of the False Claims Act, a federal statute that’s been used aggressively against FHA lenders. The FCA imposes liability on persons that defraud government programs and was originally enacted to penalize private parties that profited illegally in selling supplies to the U.S. Army during the Civil War. In the case of United States ex rel. Adams v. Aurora Loan Services, Inc., et al., the government argued...
Forty-five congressmen signed a letter addressed to the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency on March 1 citing the need to reform the way nonperforming loan sales are conducted and singled out Lone Star Funds as a “bad actor” in the transactions. The letter, addressed to FHFA Director Mel Watt as well as Secretary Julian Castro of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, noted that there are improvements both agencies should take to better align the programs with the goals of stabilizing neighborhoods, alleviating the affordable housing crisis and working with organizations that have a track record of homeownership preservation.
As talks of GSE reform intensify with FHFA Director Mel Watt’s speech last month citing concerns about dwindling capital levels, the Mortgage Bankers Association held a briefing this week on Capitol Hill focusing on the urgent need for reform, but stopped short at agreeing with calls to recapitalize the mortgage giants. Reasons to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac appear to be growing like a never-ending laundry list with increased risk to taxpayers at the very top. The MBA said its core concern is that one of the GSEs will have to take a draw from the U.S. Treasury because earnings capacity is much less than it has been over the past few years and is only expected to decline.
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae recently enhanced the disclosures for their single-family credit risk transfers to give potential investors more information on the deals. Investors and lawmakers have been calling for more transparency since the GSEs began transferring credit risk several years ago.Freddie’s disclosures for all single-family credit risk transfer initiatives will now include quarterly updates on credit scores for outstanding loans in all transactions as well as quarterly updated mark-to-market loan-to-value ratios. Freddie said this leverages the estimated property value from its Home Value Explorer Automated Valuation Model tool. Investors can analyze loan-level mortgage insurance details and identify whether or not the lender or the borrower paid the mortgage insurance on the loan.
One of the companies that purchased a large number of distressed homes from Fannie Mae following the housing crisis was the focus of a recent New York Times piece highlighting the problems brought on by investor-purchased homes that still linger today. Harbour Portfolio Advisors of Dallas is an investment firm that purchased thousands of single-family homes from Fannie in states like Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio, by way of a pool sales program that existed from 2010 to 2014. The article accused the firm of targeting and taking advantage of low-income buyers who don’t know what they’re getting themselves into once agreeing to buy a fixer-upper home from Harbour. The investment firm bought...
Bank of America introduced a new affordable lending program last week that allows 3 percent downpayments and no required reserve funds in most instances. The bank partnered with Freddie Mac and Self-Help Ventures Fund, a Durham, NC-based nonprofit, to offer conforming loans to borrowers whose income doesn’t exceed 100 percent of the area median income. There’s also no private mortgage insurance on the loans as “Self-Help Ventures Fund is taking the first loss position in the event of a loan default through a recourse agreement,” said a Freddie spokesman. The Affordable Loan Solution mortgage was designed to let creditworthy homebuyers who meet specific income limits and other requirements to become homeowners at an affordable entry point, said...
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