Citing the urgent need to take “immediate action to prevent more foreclosures,” a group of more than two dozen House lawmakers is urging President Obama to appoint a new permanent Federal Housing Finance Agency director via a recess appointment. In a letter sent to the president last week, 28 California Democrats said the FHFA under the stewardship of Acting Director Edward DeMarco has “consistently and erroneously interpreted its mandate” as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s regulator “far too narrowly” and failed to help struggling California homeowners. “As the fiduciary of government-backed...

Bulk sales of real estate owned properties by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHA that would become rental properties may help relieve pressure from an excess of inventory for sale, but it will require a change in how the agencies have traditionally handled their foreclosure inventory. The Federal Reserve earlier this month made a strong case for an REO-to-rental strategy, arguing that even if it costs the agencies a little more in foreclosure losses it could help the broader housing market by firming up prices and shifting more units to meet growing demand for rental housing. Many private...

Agency single-family MBS issuance ended 2011 with a bang as the three agencies jostled for market share, a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis reveals. Ginnie Mae and Freddie Mac ended the year with nearly identical total issuance, with Freddie seeing a slightly larger decline from 2010 levels. Fannie Mae, however, recorded a much smaller drop in total production last year, boosting its share of the agency market. Freddie could not keep pace with Fannie’s surging MBS issuance volume during the fourth quarter. In December, Freddie accounted for just 22.7 percent of combined production by the two...

The Securities and Exchange Commission has adopted a modified policy that will require defendants in settlement agreements to admit to wrongdoing if they have already pled guilty in parallel criminal cases. “Following a review by senior enforcement staff that began this spring and separate discussions with the commissioners over the last several months, last week we modified our settlement language for cases involving criminal convictions where a defendant has admitted violations of the criminal law,” said SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami.The new policy does not require admissions...

Reducing monthly payments to a sustainable level for distressed borrowers who are significantly underwater on their mortgages may require principal reductions, in addition to interest rate concessions and loan term extensions, but pursuing such a policy is not without significant drawbacks, according to a Federal Reserve analysis. In a white paper sent to the banking committees on Capitol Hill last week, the Fed dove into the controversial issue of whether Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be taking more aggressive steps like principal reduction to help distressed borrowers and shore up...

In a major shake-up of the executive suite, Fannie Mae chief executive Michael Williams announced his resignation this week, effective as soon as the company’s board chooses a successor.Williams’ resignation follows last October’s announcement by Freddie Mac CEO Charles Haldeman that he would step down from the company sometime in 2012.Williams spent 21 years at Fannie in a variety of capacities, most notably as the executive responsible for overseeing the company’s financial restatements, and accounting and control reforms pre-conservatorship and as chief operating officer. In April 2009, he was named CEO.

Despite some commendable improvements in its monitoring of the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks, the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s failure to establish policies, systems and documentation standards threatens to undermine the FHFA’s oversight of troubled FHLBanks, according to a new report by the FHFA’s overseer.The FHFA Office of Inspector General’s first report of 2012 picks right up where it left off last year in the OIG’s persistent criticism of the FHFA’s oversight of the GSEs.Since 2008, four FHLBanks – Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Seattle – have faced “significant financial and operational difficulties,” primarily due to their investments in high-risk mortgage-backed securities. In 2009 and 2010, the four Banks posted losses of nearly $2.0 billion on non-agency MBS investments, the FHFA-OIG noted.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has issued a final rule making a number of minor but important tweaks to its mortgage reporting requirements. The changes make way for data reporting of housing goals for the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks.On Dec. 21, the Finance Agency published in the Federal Register new reporting requirements governing FHLBank housing goals “to make those requirements consistent with other data reporting requirements currently applicable to the Banks.”The FHFA’s final rule is in keeping with the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 which amended the Federal Home Loan Bank Act by requiring the director to establish housing goals with respect to the FHLBanks’ purchase of mortgages.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issued $261.59 billion in single-family mortgage-backed securities during the fourth quarter of 2011, a booming 47.6 percent improvement from a modest third quarter that followed two straight quarterly declines during the first six months of 2011.The recently completed October-December cycle represented the highest quarterly production level of the year, but it still came up 21.2 percent short of the volume generated during the fourth quarter of 2010.For the year, GSE single-family securitizations were down 12.7 percent from the volume generated during 2010.