The Federal Housing Finance Agency filed a motion last week to dismiss a lawsuit that was filed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders in Delaware this summer who argued that the Treasury sweep of the government-sponsored enterprises’ profits is illegal under state law. The complaint stated that with Fannie chartered under Delaware law and Freddie under Virginia’s jurisdiction, the preferred stock of a corporation cannot be given a cumulative dividend right equal to all the ...

In the same blog post, Hsieh – who did not talk to the press about the scuttled IPO – described loanDepot as a “unicorn startup,” calling it “one of the very few success stories not from Silicon Valley.

Loan-level data from single-family mortgage-backed securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac show subtle signs of credit easing so far in 2015, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis.Average credit scores and debt-to-income ratios, when loans are sorted by purpose, have bounced around from month to month without showing much indication that lenders are making loans to riskier borrowers. The average credit score for purchase mortgages securitized in January, for example, was 750.5. In October, it was 751.7, and the average for the first 10 months of the year was 752.0. Refi loans generally have lower credit scores; the average so far for 2015 is 745.3, but there is some evidence that the credit box has been expanding in...

With the Federal Housing Finance Agency preparing to announce whether or not it will change the current conforming loan limit for 2016 any day now, speculation abounds. Although industry groups largely supported an FHFA plan that correlates adjustments of the conforming loan limits to FHFA’s “expanded data” House Price Index, the extent to which conforming loan limits should be adjusted remains debatable among trade groups and housing observers. Back in May, the FHFA noted that home prices were close to recovering from the aftermath of the financial crisis, which caused some to speculate that it could prompt an increase to the conforming loan limit.

The pay raise that CEOs Donald Layton of Freddie Mac and Timothy Mayopoulus of Fannie Mae got earlier this year likely won’t last long after the House passed legislation this week to cap their salaries at $600,000 per year, what they were making prior to the increased compensation package. The house passed this week the Equity in Government Compensation Act, introduced by Rep. Ed Royce, R-CA, in May, to suspend the multi-million dollar compensation packages approved earlier this year by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Royce said the bill will be the first major stand-alone legislation enacted that deals with the GSEs since they were placed into conservatorship if President Obama signs it into law as expected.

The Federal Home Loan Bank system introduced a new servicing-released option from Nationstar Mortgage as part of its Mortgage Partnership Finance program. The program lets member lenders sell their fixed-rate government loans into the secondary market. and the new option is expected to be ready sometime in December. The MPF government mortgage-backed security product already had a servicing-retained option, in which the lenders service their own loans, but with the new product, FHLB bank members can use the full service options without the infrastructure or expertise needed to service the loans. John Stocchetti, executive vice president of the MPF program, which operates out of the Chicago FHLBank, said the new option is another step in the FHLBank system becoming a “one-stop shop” for its members.

The Federal Home Loan Banks reported a modest decline in outstanding advances during the third quarter, but the complexion of the system’s customers continued to shift, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis of bank call reports and Office of Finance disclosures. Total advances outstanding declined just 0.2 percent from the end of the second quarter, but commercial bank usage was down 8.2 percent. Banks were still the biggest borrowers of FHLBank advances, with a 58.9 percent share of the total $586.2 billion (par value) of advances outstanding at the end of September. Meanwhile, advances to insurance companies surged a whopping 14.6 percent during the third quarter, replacing thrifts as the second-largest class of FHLBank advance users.

Two recent studies tout the case for recapitalizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and cite concerns surrounding access to credit and the need for more affordable housing. While the Obama administration officials have previously rejected such proposals, that hasn’t stopped the ideas from flowing. Promoting affordable housing by recapitalizing Fannie and Freddie is the premise of a new study released by Robert Shapiro, former Brookings Institute fellow, and chairman of Sonecon, LLC, along with Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at Brookings. They argue that conservatorship should come to an end. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition also released a white paper and focused on protecting the GSE duty to serve and the role it plays in providing access to credit and affordable housing...

After launching pilot programs in Detroit last year and Chicago earlier this year, the Federal Housing Finance Agency recently announced that it is significantly expanding its foreclosure prevention initiative by adding 18 new markets. The Neighborhood Stabilization Initiative gives community organizations the first opportunity to buy foreclosed properties from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Beginning in December, NSI will grow to the 20 markets that suffered the most from the housing crisis. Each GSE had at least 100 real-estate-owned properties valued at less than $75,000 in each of those markets. The goal of the program is to help stabilize neighborhoods by letting local community organizations get an exclusive first look...

From plans to argue a recent motion to dismiss a case to appeals and new lawsuits on the radar, investors in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stock are continuing to challenge government officials in their quest to prove that the conservatorship and the Treasury sweep were illegal. Last week, the Federal Housing Finance Agency filed a motion to dismiss a case that was filed by two GSE shareholders in Delaware this summer who argued that the Treasury sweep, which takes the bulk of the government-sponsored enterprises’ profits, is illegal under state law. The complaint stated that with Fannie chartered under Delaware law and Freddie under Virginia’s jurisdiction, the preferred stock of a...