The final rule from the FHFA also simplifies the standard for issuing suspension orders...

“It is likely that Fannie Mae could have survived the financial crisis without the intervention of the Treasury,” the authors argue.

The group’s combined production-related income fell a lot more than their actual origination volume, which was down 5.8 percent from the second quarter...

The new approach is expected to be a more cost-effective route than going through the repeated repurchase requests that have plagued lenders over the years.

A number of financial indicators and documents suggest that Fannie Mae was not in the dire straits reported to justify its takeover, according to a new white paper. Adam Spittler, GSE activist investor, along with Mike Ciklin, owner of a small law firm specializing in MBS, and G. Stevenson Smith, an accounting professor specializing in fraud, published a white paper saying they reviewed financial statements to better understand the viability of the GSE from 2007 to 2014.

Fannie Mae recently said that in 2016 it would announce details about its plans to let lenders pay a risk fee as an alternative to repurchase for some of the defective loans it receives. While both GSEs have already put some remedies for defects in place, this alternative lets the lender pay a fee for some loans labeled defective, instead of being asked to repurchase the loan. …

The Ginnie Mae share of total mortgage debt outstanding hit a record 15.2 percent at September 30, according to exclusive survey figures from Inside Mortgage Finance...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will try to transfer the credit risk on 90 percent of their mainstream mortgage business in 2016 under new marching orders from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, but next year’s activity may end up being less than the 2015 total. The FHFA in the past has set credit-risk transfer goals based on specific dollar amounts. But next year’s target is to sell some of the credit risk on nearly all of the fixed-rate mortgages the two government-sponsored enterprises buy that have loan terms exceeding 20 years and loan-to-value ratios over 60 percent. Activity in the dwindling Home Affordable Refinance Program will be excluded. In the first 11 months of 2015, the two GSEs securitized...

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association advised Capitol Hill that the successful government-sponsored enterprise credit risk-sharing programs could be improved to increase liquidity and investor interest. In a letter to Sen. Richard Shelby, R-AL, chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, the Wall Street group said, “Up-front risk-sharing could make housing finance more efficient and sustainable by allowing the GSEs to achieve day-one risk transfers without having to warehouse credit risk until it can be distributed in a back-end credit transfer transaction.” It added...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency gave Fannie Mac and Freddie Mac their marching orders for 2016 by releasing its annual objectives late this week. Increasing access to credit, more risk sharing and continued work on building a new single security are among the primary goals for the year.As credit risk transfers continue to evolve, the FHFA said the GSEs should be transferring credit risk on a minimum of 90 percent of the unpaid principal balance of newly acquired single-family mortgages in loan categories targeted for risk transfer. For 2016, those targets include non-Home Affordable Refinance Programs, fixed-rate terms greater than 20 years, and loan-to-value ratios above 60 percent.