The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s announcement last month that it is considering increased risk sharing with mortgage insurers, which could mitigate the negative effect of conforming mortgage guarantee fee increases over the coming years, while the Federal Reserve’s recently unveiled “Operation Twist” is likely to provide a “modest near-term boost to mortgage markets,” according to a report by Moody’s Investors Service.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency knew or should have known about improper foreclosure practices involving Fannie Mae affiliated law firms long before the Finance Agency began a review, according to the regulator’s official watchdog.The FHFA Office of Inspector General’s latest audit found that the FHFA did not investigate complaints about Fannie’s Retained Attorney Network until August 2010 in the wake of negative news reports alleging that RAN attorneys had engaged in inappropriate foreclosure practices, such as routinely filing false documents in court proceedings and “robo-signing.”

The ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is calling on the Federal Housing Finance Agency to “give serious consideration” to shuttering Fannie Mae’s Retained Attorney Network, but not before answering questions and providing documents about the FHFA’s oversight of the program.

Women, on average, pay more for mortgages than men even after taking into account variables like borrower characteristics, mortgage features and market conditions, according to a new study published in the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics. The authors, economists Ping Cheng, Zhenguo Lin and Yingchun Liu, suggest that the difference may have more to do with the way men and women seek out lenders than gender discrimination by lenders. The study – “Do Women Pay More for Mortgages?” – notes that the share of single women homebuyers doubled from about one in ten homebuyers 15 years ago to about one in five in 2003. More than...

The Obama administration’s Housing Scorecard for September paints a reasonably rosy picture of efforts to help troubled homeowners and future market prospects. With record low mortgage interest rates, housing affordability increased modestly. But the number of new default notices rose from 59,500 in August to 78,900, which is still well below the 96,500 level of a year ago. Notably, sales of real estate owned properties were down this period. Preliminary numbers from July 2011 show that there were 46,200 REO sales, as opposed to 62,200 in June and 61,800 a year ago. New home sales were down slightly in...

Chase Home Finance surged past Bank of America to become the second most prolific producer of agency MBS during the third quarter, according to a new ranking by Inside MBS & ABS. Chase has played third fiddle behind BofA and Wells Fargo for the past few years, and still ranked third in agency MBS production on a year-to-date basis. But BofA has been dumping mortgage production capacity and trying to claw its way to higher ground while Chase has made modest gains in market share. Those trends are likely to accelerate in coming months as BofA closes down its correspondent business after failing to find a...(Includes two data charts)

The chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform wants the Federal Housing Finance Agency to explain why it hired two outside law firms in a massive legal action to recover losses suffered by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on their investments in non-agency MBS. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA, wrote FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco on Sept. 29 asking why the agency hired outside counsel from Quinn Emanuel & Sullivan and from Kasowitz Benson Torres & Freidman to initiate lawsuits against financial institutions and how much the agency is paying them. Issa posed detailed questions and requested documents regarding...

Prepayments increased overall in September, particularly on agency fixed-rate MBS, with faster pay-downs occurring in lower coupons, according to analyst reviews of prepayment speeds. The experts expressed surprise at unexpectedly high prepayments for recent low coupon vintages and greater weakness for higher coupons. Deutsche Bank analysts reported that speeds for 4.0 percent Fannie Mae MBS issued in 2010 and 2009 more than doubled in September compared to the previous month. Speeds for similar MBS with 4.5 percent coupons increased also as much, they noted. For example, prepayment speeds for 2010 Fannie MBS with a 4.0 percent coupon...

The improvements that the Federal Housing Finance Agency is expected to make to the government’s Home Affordable Refinance Program will likely come at the expense of MBS investors, say experts. The outlines of an expanded HARP are far from clear, but the FHFA is said to be giving serious consideration to lifting the 125 percent loan-to-value limit, in addition to waiving loan-level pricing adjustments, representation and warranties imposed on lenders, valuation requirements and the portability of mortgage insurance. The agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is expected to make an...

Alt A mortgages and interest-only loans held by Freddie Mac will be subject to new buyback reviews due to issues with the government-sponsored enterprise’s settlement with Bank of America. An audit released last week suggests that the GSE lost billions of dollars by failing to include thousands of alternative mortgages in the buyback analysis. The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Office of Inspector General conducted the audit and – at the request of the FHFA and Freddie – redacted the exact amount of money potentially “left on the table.” ...