The linchpin for a viable and comprehensive National Mortgage Database is to ensure that the identities of both mortgage borrowers and mortgage servicers from whom the statistical information is collected for analysis are protected behind a firm wall of security countermeasures, according to project architects.
A bill to reform the government-sponsored enterprises that is in the works in the Senate would reduce conforming loan limits at a much slower pace than many non-agency participants would like to see. Draft legislation from Sens. Bob Corker, R-TN, and Mark Warner, D-VA, has some bipartisan support in Congress, though it is unclear how far the bill will make it in Congress this year. The Secondary Mortgage Market Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act of 2013 would replace the Federal Housing Finance Agency with ...
Policymakers looking for a model to replace the government-sponsored enterprises should look no further than the non-agency jumbo market, according to Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. We dont have to look overseas to see a well-functioning housing market without GSEs, he said at a hearing this week. Prior to the housing bust, the jumbo market was approximately 20 percent of the total housing market. There was capital, liquidity, competition ...
The Federal Housing Finance Agency is holding a two-day, closed-door working group Thursday and Friday with force-placed insurance stakeholders following the FHFAs recent actions to shutter an insurance proposal by Fannie Mae and its policy proposal to develop a set of force-placed aligned standards.
The federal government seized control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by extra-legal means during the 2008 financial crisis and then went out of its way to curtail the two government-sponsored enterprises profits while unjustly denying GSE shareholders just compensation for their deliberately devalued holdings, according to a lawsuit filed this week. The suit filed by GSE shareholders in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, DC, asserts the takeover of Fannie and Freddie by the Federal Housing Finance Agency was unlawful and unwarranted and an unconstitutional violation of due process which cost investors billions of dollars. Even if a statutory basis existed...
Freddie Macs recently announced low-activity fee for seller/servicers not meeting new quotas for loan deliveries and mortgage servicing would limit the ability of community banks to provide mortgages to their customers and should be repealed before the policy takes effect next year, according to two industry trade groups. Last week, the Independent Community Bankers of America dispatched a letter to the government-sponsored enterprise and its conservator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, stating that Freddies assessment of a $7,500 annual fee to lenders who fail to deliver mortgage loans with an aggregate principal balance of more than $5 million or who service mortgages for the GSE with an aggregate balance of at least $25 million goes too far. The trade group complained...
Bank of America recorded $10.45 billion of mortgage repurchases and indemnifications during the first quarter of 2013, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis of recently released call report data.
Roughly $148 billion of single-family agency MBS were issued last month, down almost 3 percent from Aprils level. May was the slowest month for agency MBS issuance so far in 2013.
Among the many allegations, the plaintiffs charge that the seizure of Fannie and Freddie was unlawful and unwarranted and represents an unconstitutional violation of due process which cost investors billions of dollars.