“Securitization is the false god that failed us.” These are the words of Mark Calabria, the conservative economist whom the Trump administration nominated last week as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, replacing Mel Watt, whose term ends in January.
In what’s become a nearly annual event, the Congressional Budget Office this week suggested raising the guarantee fees charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and/or lowering the loan limit, in order to reduce the federal deficit.
The average guarantee fee charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was unchanged at 56 basis points in 2017, according to an annual report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Even a relatively modest increase in interest rates is likely to have a disproportionate impact on the ability of high debt-to-income households to qualify for GSE loans, according to a recent report by Wells Fargo Securities Structured Products Research.
Repurchases of GSE loans by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sellers continued to decline in the third quarter, though the pipeline of unresolved buyback demands ticked higher. [Includes one data chart.]
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