The sponsor of legislation that would make Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac subject to the Freedom of Information Act’s government transparency provisions told Inside The GSEs this week he is optimistic his bill has a “real fighting chance” of passage in the House.Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-UT, said his bill, H.R. 463, The Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Transparency Act of 2011, has “picked up momentum” following a hearing two weeks ago, and the headlines it produced, in which the GSEs’ regulator panned the bill as potentially harmful to Fannie and Freddie.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s home retention activity declined for the most part during the first quarter, according to the latest Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Foreclosure Prevention and Refinance Report.Total home retention efforts dropped to 143,977 during the first three months of the year, down 20 percent from the fourth quarter, while loan modifications in the period also declined to 86,201, down 28 percent.

In light of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s federal conservatorship status and the resulting control by the Treasury Department, the two GSEs are “effectively part of the government” and their operations should be reflected in the federal budget, according to the Congressional Budget Office.CBO has concluded that using a fair-value approach to estimate Fannie and Freddie’s subsidy costs is the best way to give Congress and taxpayers the most accurate accounting information.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has issued an interim final regulation with a request for comments on changes to its existing Freedom of Information Act regulations. In its notice, published in the May 23 Federal Register, the FHFA said it is updating its existing FOIA regulations to include the FHFA Office of Inspector General. The FHFA-OIG did not yet exist when the Finance Agency’s original FOIA regulations were issued in 2009.

In a move that might bring more certainty to the role of Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems in the foreclosure process, Fannie Mae is requiring lenders to more clearly identify MERS-registered mortgages. The government-sponsored enterprise already requires lenders to report the MERS Mortgage Identification Number for mortgages originated with MERS as the nominee for the mortgagee or assigned to MERS. Then two weeks ago, Fannie announced several updates to its selling guide having to do with MERS-registered mortgages, one of which is...

Fannie Mae is tightening its loan modification requirements and calling on servicers to consider a loan modification only when a repayment plan is not appropriate to cure the delinquency. According to Announcement SVC-2011-03, issued April 4, the GSE has updated...

The proposal pushed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to end government support of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is a “huge step in the right direction” toward housing recovery, according to a Heritage Foundation senior research fellow. A paper by Heritage’s David John supports...

Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac retained their ample role in mortgage-backed security market share during the first quarter of 2011, according to a new Inside The GSEs analysis. Both GSEs issued...[Includes one data chart]

The Federal Home Loan Banks should be transformed into a “wholly private structure” in order to defuse the potential systemic risk of incompatible public and private goals, the same conflict that helped usher the downfall of fellow GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, argue...

Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have put their foot down regarding certain agreements between servicers and mortgage insurers, reminding them in no uncertain terms that any deals that might compromise the mortgage insurance of GSE loans are prohibited. Fannie published...