The issue of whether the Federal Housing Finance Agency will alter the dividend payments Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pay the Treasury Department became a bit more complicated this month when agency Director Mel Watt hinted in correspondence he’s unlikely to make a change. But despite such a sentiment being expressed in a letter to the National Association of Realtors, there continues to be a school of thought among certain lobbyists and trade group officials that a change is coming. “I still think...
Members of Congress have left Washington, DC, for their summer recess, and mortgage industry representatives are using the time to plan strategy and educate lawmakers on key issues to help propel a number of measures across the finish line before the year ends. The most time-sensitive issues are reauthorizing the national flood insurance program and setting budgets for FHA and Ginnie Mae activity in fiscal 2018, which begins Oct. 1, 2017. Lawmakers will be looking to deal with these in September. Authority for the National Flood Insurance Program expires...
Mortgage industry groups cannot seem to agree on whether there should be more than two guarantors of conventional mortgage-backed securities once Congress and the White House figure out what to do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Mortgage Bankers Association firmly supports multiple guarantors, arguing that more competition is better. But groups representing smaller lenders worry about the burden of maintaining relationships with many secondary-market outlets and the potential for an uneven playing field. David Stevens, president and CEO of the MBA, said...
If the $10.4 billion figure proves accurate it will result in another hefty dividend payment by Fannie and Freddie to the holder of its senior preferred stock: the U.S. Treasury.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are well aware of the issue and have leeway to replace LIBOR with another benchmark when the time comes, industry officials said.
Mortgage lending representatives told the CFPB they support its proposal to temporarily increase the institutional and transactional coverage thresholds for open-end lines of credit under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. However, more needs to be done along those lines, they said in comment letters filed at the end of last month. Under the CFPB’s HMDA rules scheduled to take effect in January 2018, financial institutions are generally required to report HELOCs if they made 100 such loans in each of the past two years. Under the proposal released early last month, the bureau would increase that threshold to 500 loans through calendar years 2018 and 2019 in order to give the agency the time to consider whether to make a ...
RSS