Over the past couple of weeks, a battle has been brewing over the government’s response to a court order to release dozens of documents regarding the U.S. Treasury’s net worth sweep of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac profits. Plaintiffs in Fairholme Funds Inc. v. United States, et al, filed an emergency enforcement motion arguing that the government is purposely taking too long to produce the documents and requesting unnecessary extensions. Federal Claims Court Judge Margaret Sweeney ordered the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Treasury to turn over 56 documents to the plaintiff’s attorney, under seal, back in mid-September. The agencies had been...
In case you didn’t know it, the Irvine, CA-based Citadel now services roughly $650 million in nonprime loans. Angel Oak and Deephaven use subservicers…
Mortgage lenders delivered a slightly less risky assortment of single-family loans into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities during the third quarter of 2016, according to a new Inside Mortgage Trends analysis. Some 11.62 percent of purchase mortgages securitized by the two government-sponsored enterprises had low credit scores and high loan-to-value ratios during the third quarter, down from 11.79 percent in the previous ... [Includes two data charts]
CEO Debra Still of Pulte Mortgage blamed low usage on the fact that Fannie and Freddie use different terminology and eligibility criteria for things like area median income.
Low-downpayment programs introduced by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac almost two years ago have been slow to gain traction. According to an Inside Mortgage Finance analysis of mortgage-backed securities data, the two government-sponsored enterprises purchased $10.31 billion of purchase mortgages with loan-to-value ratios of 96 to 97 percent during the first nine months of 2016. However, nearly half of that came in the third quarter, which saw a 52.7 percent jump from the previous period. Bob Ryan, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s division of conservatorship, said...
The question of whether FHA should do another mortgage insurance premium reduction is pretty much on stakeholders’ minds as they anticipate the release of the annual actuarial review of the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund next week. Analysts, however, are not ready to change their opinion that further MIP cuts are unlikely. Some analysts said they would reconsider their views if the upcoming report showed strong growth in the MMI Fund, while others believe FHA’s priorities today are different than they were in early 2015, when the agency cut the annual premium for forward mortgages to 0.85 percent. The FHA’s decision to lower the annual MIP was spurred...
Don’t expect any rapid changes to the charters of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. After all, GSE reform is hard. At least that’s the message of some market watchers.
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