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.

Mel Watt called the credit score explorations one of the “most difficult” evaluations he’s taken on as FHFA director.

Mortgage software provider Ellie Mae said in a recent SEC filing that “part” of its business strategy is to target larger mortgage lenders...

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.

Most of the companies are in decent shape, but the group is weighed down by two big albatrosses – Ocwen Financial and Walter Investment…

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 ...

The pronounced shift from refinance to purchase lending made for major changes in overall risk distribution during the second quarter.

Although Fannie and Freddie continue to earn money hand over fist, their common shares are probably worth just $1 a piece, according to a new research report…