After six years of government control of the GSEs, Congressional inaction has ensured no legislative solution to housing finance reform anytime soon so the administration must take action, according to a white paper unveiled this week. Clifford Rossi, adjunct professor at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, College Park, told Inside The GSEs that a legislative fix to GSE reform is the ideal solution.

A federal judge in Florida this week dismissed a lawsuit brought by the National Low Income Housing Coalition seeking to force Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s conservator to make good on the GSEs’ statutory obligations to contribute to the National Housing Trust Fund. In the summer of 2013, the National Low Income Housing Coalition filed suit arguing that since the GSEs returned to profitability in 2012, the Federal Housing Finance Agency should have directed Fannie and Freddie to begin to pay up.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency disagrees with its Inspector General’s recommendation that the FHFA direct Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to assess the cost/benefit of requiring their sellers and servicers to provide independent, third-party confirmation on compliance with government-sponsored enterprise origination and servicing guidance. The IG audit, quietly issued late last week, noted that the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as private mortgage-backed securities investors in the secondary mortgage market, require annual, independent assurance of counterparty compliance.

Efforts to reduce the government-sponsored enterprises’ footprint using guaranty fees and loan limits should be left to Congress, according to Bob Ryan, a special advisor to the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Meanwhile, officials at the Treasury Department suggest that the FHFA does have a role in setting policy that will inform any housing finance reform action by Congress.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency can and should improve its oversight of Freddie Mac information technology investments, concluded a new audit by the agency’s official watchdog. Last week’s Inspector General audit noted that Freddie is making “substantial investments” in IT in order to better support its operations and reduce risk. The GSE’s planned IT expenditures over three years are expected to exceed $1 billion, the IG added.

Fannie Mae last week announced two significant executive staffing changes. Leslie Peeler, senior vice president in charge of Fannie Mae’s National Servicing Organization, is leaving the GSE for a senior position with IBM’s mortgage group. It’s unclear what exactly Peeler will do for the mortgage division of IBM, which includes Seterus, a subservicer that works for Fannie Mae. IBM rarely discloses any information about its mortgage division.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac saw significant increases in single-family mortgage business during the third quarter of 2014, and they relied less on their top sellers, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis. Together, the two government-sponsored enterprises issued $183.2 billion of single-family mortgage-backed securities during the third quarter. That was up 29.1 percent from the previous quarter. Most of the gain came from a 31.7 percent jump in ... [Includes two data charts]

FHFA Principal Reduction Pilot Program. A bill filed by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, before Congress left town last month would create a shared-appreciation mortgage program in which banks would reduce the mortgage principal for eligible underwater homeowners. Under the Preserving American Homeownership Act, S. 2854, the pilot programs – to be established by the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the FHA – would entitle banks to a portion of the increased value of the home when the market improves.

Although linked to higher likelihood of defaults for first mortgages, piggyback second liens do not necessarily mean bad results for the associated primary loan. However, subsequent second liens have had mixed results over certain time periods. “The empirical results for subsequent second liens are much more nuanced and, in many ways, more interesting than the piggyback results,” concludes Andrew Leventis, principal economist at the Federal Housing Finance Agency ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securitized a total of $183.17 billion of single-family mortgages during the third quarter of 2014, continuing the improving momentum from the previous period, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis. Combined mortgage-backed securities issuance for the two GSEs rose 29.1 percent from the second quarter, marking the second straight increase from the record-low levels set during the first three months of 2014. On a year-to-date basis, GSE volume was down 53.6 percent from the first nine months of 2013.