Fannie Mae hit an earnings home run in the first quarter while revealing that it has released $50.6 billion in “deferred tax assets,” an allowance that sets up a massive cash payment to the U.S. Treasury by the end of June. Fannie estimates that based on a net worth of $62.4 billion at March 31, it will have a dividend obligation to Treasury of $59.4 billion, a cash payment that appears all but certain. Following an edict from Treasury last summer, the GSEs cannot build retained earnings and can only maintain a small “buffer” of net worth. The rest of their earnings must be given to Treasury, which controls their preferred stock.

Preliminary combined net income for the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks fell 12.3 percent to $580 million in the first quarter of 2013, down from $661 million at the end of the fourth quarter and a 20.9 percent decrease from the same period last year, according to the Federal Home Loan Bank Office of Finance. The FHLBank systems’ $153 million year-over-year decrease was driven primarily by lower net interest income, partially offset by lower assessments and non-interest expense. Total FHLBank assets were $738.7 billion on March 31, 2013, down 3.1 percent from $762.5 billion on Dec. 31, 2012, due to declines in investments, advances, mortgage loans and other assets.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are “on track” in their conservator-mandated effort to create a common mortgage-backed security securitization platform even as the GSEs also draft standard contracts and disclosures for the MBS market of the future, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The “progress report” that the FHFA issued last week was more of an outline of public comments it has received so far on what the agency and the GSEs have already proposed on the scope, design and construction of a common securitization platform and the progress of a CSP prototype. “The design is deliberately flexible so that the long-term ownership structure may be adjusted to meet the goals and direction that policymakers set forth for housing finance reform,” the report said. “Importantly, FHFA plans on instituting a formal structure to allow for ongoing input from industry participants.”

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is calling for public comments to weigh in on its planned survey of borrowers as part of a joint effort with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to build and maintain a database of government mortgage information. The planned National Survey of Mortgage Borrowers will be a quarterly survey of recent first-time borrowers of single-family mortgages. “The survey questionnaire will be sent to approximately 7,000 new mortgage borrowers each calendar quarter and will consist of approximately 80-85 multiple choice and short-answer questions designed to obtain information about individual residential mortgage borrowers that is not available elsewhere,” explained the FHFA in its recent Federal Register notice.

Mortgage industry economists widely agree that loan origination volume is going to drop sharply in 2013 – and again next year – although there is some variation in when they expect the downturn to take hold. The consensus view of economists at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Mortgage Bankers Association is that new originations in 2013 will drop 13.6 percent from last year’s level, falling to $1.635 trillion. The consensus – a simple average calculated by Inside Mortgage Trends – predicts ... [Includes one data chart]

GSE principal reduction could end up saving the government money but its reach to additional distressed borrowers would be limited, according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office. Expanding Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s loan modification policy to include principal forgiveness under the current Home Affordable Modification Program would probably generate fewer than 60,000 additional modifications, concluded the CBO report published last week.

Democrats are happy, but not quite content, with President Obama’s long-awaited action last week to send the name of Rep. Mel Watt, D-NC, to the Senate as the White House’s nominee for director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Prominent progressives are doubling down by demanding that Edward DeMarco, the FHFA’s long-standing but embattled acting director, be dispatched out of office by the president forthwith. Freshman Senator and one-time Consumer Financial Protection Bureau architect Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, D, lauded Watt’s nomination, then immediately demanded that Obama appoint a new FHFA acting director in the interim.

Total primary mortgage insurance coverage provided by private MIs fell 6.5 percent to $50.44 billion in the first quarter, a figure that includes HARP loans.

Fannie Mae is set to "give back" $50.6 billion to the U.S. Treasury by June 30, thanks to stellar earnings and accounting treatment of deferred tax assets.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and their government overseer are considering adding new features to the common securitization platform in addition to the major components in the initial design, according to officials speaking at the Mortgage Bankers Association Secondary Market Conference in New York this week. A potential addition to the project would include “life flow data” about the mortgage transaction, said Manoj Singh, associate director in the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Office of Strategic Initiatives. The common securitization platform, or CSP, has been focused on the securitization function, but feedback from the industry has raised the prospect of expanding it to house all the data points that could be needed over the life of the loan, including foreclosure disposition, if it comes to that. Once the government-sponsored enterprises start...