The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently affirmed that federal mortgage programs and their administrators, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are exempt statutorily exempt from state and local taxation of real property transfers. The panel – consisting of Circuit Court Judges Richard Paez, Jay Bybee and Consuelo Callahan – held that because Congress had power to regulate the secondary mortgage market, it was authorized under the “Necessary and Proper Clause” to create Fannie and Freddie and to ensure their preservation by exempting them from state and local taxes. Brought by the City of Spokane, WA, the lawsuit is part of a wave of similar filings throughout the country to challenge the GSE exemption from ...
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wrote a combined $56.9 billion of multifamily business in 2014, up 4.6 percent from the previous year. Fannie issued $11.4 billion in multifamily mortgage-backed securities in the fourth quarter of 2014, bringing the year’s total to $28.6 billion, mostly through its Delegated Underwriting and Servicing program. That represented a slight uptick from the previous year’s $28.5 billion. Fannie also re-securitized $2.5 billion of DUS MBS through its Guaranteed Multifamily Structures (GeMS) program in the fourth quarter. That brought total 2014 issuance in the program to $12.0 billion, making last year the biggest year for GeMS issuance since the program started. “2014 was a strong year for Fannie Mae multifamily activity on all fronts. The DUS ...
Bulletin 2015-1. Jan. 29. Freddie Mac announced its participation in an expanded Home Affordable Modification Program “Pay for Performance” incentive program. The program was developed in conjunction with Fannie Mae at the direction of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The expanded program will include HAMP’s “Year Six Pay for Performance” incentive, which provides a $5,000 lump-sum payment to help eligible borrowers with first-lien Freddie Mac loans modified under HAMP reduce their principal balance. The HAMP incentive is effective April 1, 2015. Servicing Update. Feb. 9. Freddie introduced a bulk appeal template for late foreclosure sale reporting compensatory fees. Servicers can use this template to submit multiple compensatory fee appeals at a time through Freddie’s Default Fee Appeal System. The system ...
Having a busy correspondent program helped many of the top agency mortgage sellers cultivate purchase-mortgage business in 2014, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of loan-level data on loans securitized by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae. Mortgages originated by loan correspondents accounted for 35.3 percent of single-family loans securitized by the agencies last year. Retail originations were the ... [Includes two data charts]
Internal differences among Democrats and Republicans – let alone the strong differences between the two parties – have prevented Congress from resolving the conservatorship of the two government-sponsored enterprises, according to industry analysts. At the ABS Vegas conference this week sponsored by the Structured Finance Industry Group and Information Management Network, two people with intimate knowledge of matters in the House and Senate pointed to inter-party issues regarding GSE reform. Andrew Olmem, a partner at the law firm of Venable and a former Republican chief counsel and deputy staff director at the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs until 2013, noted...
Treasury counselor Michael Stegman noted that policymakers on both sides of the aisle are dissatisfied with the current status quo regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
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