Meanwhile, although GSE risk sharing seems popular in some circles, FHFA itself admitted recently that some of this coverage has come at premium cost to Fannie and Freddie.
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt’s comments last week that he’s prepared to allow the GSEs to build a capital buffer to avoid a Treasury draw was met with both applause and concern. But this week, Bob Ryan, special director to Watt, clarified the comments stating that the plan would entail delaying the dividend payments to the U.S. Treasury Department and not suspending them. Ryan, speaking during a credit-risk transfer symposium in New York City, kicked off the first five minutes of a panel discussion about GSE reform by talking about the potential capital buffer plan. He said that it would be done strictly for the purpose of avoiding draws on the “limited resources of the preferred stock purchase agreement.”
The purchase-mortgage business showed some green shoots in April, but not enough to offset another drop in refinance activity, according to a new Inside The GSEs ranking and analysis. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securitized $31.84 billion of purchase mortgages last month, a 12.2 percent increase from March. It was the third straight monthly gain in purchase-mortgage volume, bringing year-to-date activity to $123.46 billion, a 13.6 percent improvement over the same period in 2016. Purchase mortgages accounted for over half of GSE business in April for the first time since August of last year. But the refinance side of the business fell again in April, to just $25.49 billion. That was down 17.8...
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt reiterated his view this week that housing finance reform should fall in the hands of Congress, not the FHFA, and discussed the GSEs’ role in expanding access to credit.Speaking at the American Mortgage Conference in North Carolina, Watt followed up on points he made during last week’s Senate Housing, Banking and Urban Affairs Committee. “I drew a distinction between decisions we have made, and continue to make, as conservator and decisions Congress must make,” he said. Watt explained that decisions the FHFA has made during the conservatorship have “fundamentally reformed” the GSEs’ operations, practices and protocols.
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