A new report by Fannie Mae finds that second-home mortgage market activity is in the midst of a strong rebound, representing a small yet significant corner of the mortgage market.
ICYMI: Late last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released its guide to completing its integrated disclosure forms under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act and the Truth in Lending Act.
The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs held more than 10 hearings last year in advance of the housing-finance reform bill introduced in March by Sens. Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Mike Crapo, R-ID. However, the bill appears to be far from perfect, as industry participants are angling to make suggestions for changes as the committee plans a markup at the end of this month. Perhaps the biggest outstanding issue with S.1217 is that even though the Johnson-Crapo bill calls for the preservation of the to-be-announced market, the capital-markets execution contemplated under the new housing-finance system might not be compatible with TBA transactions. The Johnson-Crapo version of S. 1217 doesn’t have...
Standard & Poor’s earned a split decision this week in its counter-offensive against the federal government’s civil fraud lawsuit filed last year, which the rating agency claims is payback for its August 2011 downgrade of the U.S.’ ‘AAA’ credit rating. The Justice Department in February 2013 filed a $5.0 billion lawsuit against S&P accusing it of knowingly inflating its ratings of residential MBS and collateralized debt obligations to boost its revenue and market share in the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis. On Tuesday, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, CA, denied...
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did significantly less business during the first quarter of 2014 along just about every metric you can think of, but the two government-sponsored enterprises saw out-sized declines from their biggest customers. The top five GSE sellers accounted for just 33.3 percent of single-family mortgage deliveries during the first quarter of this year, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of ... [Includes two data charts]
While Congress is halfway through its two-week Easter/Passover recess, political pressure continues to build against the Senate’s bipartisan housing finance reform legislation, leading to growing doubt whether the scheduled markup of the bill will occur as scheduled later this month. At the moment, the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee has only the bare minimum majority of 12 of the 22 committee members pledged to support the GSE legislative reform bill crafted by Chairman Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Ranking Member Mike Crapo, R-ID.
While the mortgage and housing industry awaits with growing impatience for a public statement from the recently appointed head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, market observers expect Mel Watt to speak only when he is good and ready. The former 11-term North Carolina Democrat Congressman has been silent since he was sworn in to his position as FHFA director in early January. Watt has made almost no public statements nor granted any media interviews but he has spent the past weeks “doing his homework” and quietly meeting with industry trade groups seeking input.
New groups of disgruntled GSE junior shareholders have taken their demands for redress to the next level by rallying against the Senate’s pending bipartisan housing finance reform legislation. Earlier this month, the Coalition for Mortgage Security said it would campaign for legislation that protects the rights of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac investors. The group opposes the reform legislation fronted by Sens. Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Mike Crapo, R-ID, the chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.
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