The call for housing-finance reform and a legislative solution to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continues to grow among policymakers, but as the clock runs down some industry observers say it is already too late for effective action this year. Senate Banking Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, D-SD, and Ranking Member Mike Crapo, R-ID, reportedly remain close to unveiling a housing finance reform bill.

Industry observers expect the new regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will ease up on plans to shrink the GSEs’ footprint but so far the recently installed Federal Housing Finance Agency head isn’t saying much. Since Mel Watt was sworn into a five-year term as FHFA director on Jan. 6, the former North Carolina Democrat congressman has made no official public appearances or policy statements, except for canned comments attributed to him in routine Finance Agency announcements.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Inspector General wants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to penalize lenders for delays in repurchasing loans via an aggressive application of buyback late fees. The FHFA issued a “contract harmonization directive” in January 2012 calling for the two GSEs to develop “consistent timelines and collection standards for fees and penalties and additional types of penalties and remedies.”

Despite continued calls by supporters, the Obama administration remains uninterested in expanding the Home Affordable Refinance Program administratively while existing HARP 3.0 legislation remains hopelessly stalled. Last week during a public appearance, Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan made it clear that HUD will not push for an expansion of HARP.

Officials at Two Harbors Investment are touting the real estate investment trust’s recent admission into the Federal Home Loan Bank system as a way to diversify funding options for originations of jumbo mortgages, although FHLBank financing may not play a major role in the REIT’s funding in the current environment. In December, TH Insurance Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of Two Harbors, was granted membership in the FHLBank of Des Moines. Two Harbors said it appears to be the first REIT to receive ...

Countrywide Financial, now owned by Bank of America, is asking a federal judge to sanction the Federal Housing Finance Agency and to appoint a special master to investigate what CFC says is the FHFA’s “noncompliance” in producing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac documents in the company’s defense against the GSEs’ $26.6 billion MBS lawsuit. According to a motion filed earlier this month in the U.S. District Court, Central District Court of California, CFC says the FHFA is defying the court’s October order to produce – either in a timely manner or not at all – documents from Fannie’s and Freddie’s single-family businesses.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency's oversight of a nearly three-year-old initiative designed to improve the performance of residential servicers working for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has "significant limitations" and is in dire need of supervision, according to a new report from the agency’s Inspector General. The FHFA’s Servicing Alignment Initiative, introduced in April 2011, requires Fannie and Freddie to align their servicing requirements in four key areas: borrower contact, delinquency management practices, loan modifications and foreclosure timelines.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have both rolled out limited-time offer incentive programs for real estate agents and homebuyers in a bid to move some of the GSEs’ real estate-owned properties.Freddie announced this week it will pay a $1,000 inducement to selling agents and a separate $500 bonus to listing agents when they sell a home through the company’s HomeSteps program.

Fed: G-Fee Hikes Would Have Minimal Impact on Agency Originations. Increases to guaranty fees under consideration by the Federal Housing Finance Agency would directly reduce the dollar volume of new agency originations by less than 1.0 percent, according to new research published by the Federal Reserve. In December, then-FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco announced a plan to increase the base g-fee for all new Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages by 10 basis points, update the up-front g-fee grid and eliminate the upfront 25 basis point adverse market fee that has been assessed on all mortgages purchased by Fannie and Freddie since 2008.

Last year’s steady decline in GSE refinance activity continued into 2014 and contributed to an overall dip in the volume of single-family mortgages securitized by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis. Fannie and Freddie issued $47.0 billion in single-family mortgage-backed securities in January, a 15.8 percent decline from December 2013 and a steeper 61.9 percent decrease from the same period a year ago.