Although the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac common securitization platform is now legally incorporated, has a signed lease for office space in suburban Maryland and is growing staff, it still doesn’t have a chief executive and chairman – two essentials to be taken seriously by the market. “It’s pretty much turned into the mess I suspected it would a year ago,” said one former candidate for the CEO job, who spoke under the condition his name not be used. Discussing the chairman position, he added...

One of the complications of the federal government’s takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has been the injection of uncertainty over whether the two government-sponsored enterprises can foreclose by advertisement due to Uncle Sam’s control of the companies. That has bred some novel legal arguments against the GSEs’ ability in this regard, but they have met with mixed results thus far. “Over the past several months, one of the newer arguments challenging foreclosure by borrowers is...

Amid growing calls by lawmakers and policy advocates to divert some of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s increasing profitability to an affordable housing commitment, industry observers speculate that new Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt is seriously inclined to act that way. The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 requires the government-sponsored enterprises to make annual contributions to the National Housing Trust Fund and Capital Magnet Fund. Fannie and Freddie were put in government conservatorship before they ever made any contribution. Late last week, more than 30 Senate Democrats told...

The FHFA’s final rule on golden parachutes applies to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Banks and the Office of Finance, as well as any “entity-affiliated parties,” including independent contractors.

Inside Mortgage Finance makes it official: residential originations tanked in the fourth quarter, but certain nonbanks gained at the expense of the largest players.

In supplemental materials to his speech, President Obama referenced the GSEs' “failed business model,” adding that taxpayers should never again be “on the hook for bad loans and bailouts.”

Mortgage topics don’t always make the President’s State of the Union speech, but President Obama Tuesday night may touch on the issue of credit availability and whether the government has “gone too far.”

The settlement covers damages suffered by Fannie Mae from misrepresentations Lehman was alleged to have made regarding the quality of non-agency product it sold to the GSE.

Through the first nine months of 2013, commercial banks sold $1.077 trillion of home mortgages, according to call-report data compiled by Inside Mortgage Trends.

Despite AEI’s findings, delinquencies on GSE loans continue to fall. In December, for example, Freddie’s single-family delinquency rate totaled 2.39 percent compared to 3.25 percent a year earlier.