Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issued $154.95 billion in single-family mortgage-backed securities during the second quarter of 2011, a 40.6 percent drop from the first three months of the year.The recent April-June cycle represented the second straight quarterly decline in business volume since the fourth quarter 2010 surge when the two GSEs issued $331.5 billion in MBS.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh recently appointed Kristina Williams its new chief operating officer. Williams assumes the position in addition to her role as chief financial officer.

The mortgage servicing sector is warily eyeing new servicing standards cooked up by the government-sponsored enterprises at the behest of their regulator that strictly mandate the servicers’ delinquency management requirements. Some lenders dread an implementation predicament while others see opportunity. In late April, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced its Servicing Alignment Initiative that requires Fannie and Freddie to devise uniform rules for servicing delinquent mortgages they own or ...

Months after public commenters noted their opposition to proposed changes to the membership criteria of the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks, the Banks’ regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is still weighing its options going forward.At the end of December 2010, the FHFA released an advanced notice of public rulemaking indicating it was reviewing its regulations governing Bank membership to ensure there’s enough of a connection between Bank membership and the mission of the FHLBanks.

In a first-of-its-kind legal action that could inspire numerous local copycat complaints, two Michigan counties are taking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to court in separate lawsuits claiming the two GSEs have systematically dodged paying county and state property transfer taxes for years.Last month, Oakland County, which contains the state capital Lansing, filed suit against the GSEs in federal court. Two days later, officials in Ingham County, a Detroit suburb, filed suit in state court.

Fannie Mae late last week reiterated to lenders its policy on mortgage insurance coverage while it also tweaked its requirements for reporting notifications of MI rescissions, mortgage insurer-initiated cancellations and claim denials. The government-sponsored enterprise’s announcement, published June 30, reminds servicers of their “contractual obligations” to ensure that any MI coverage required by Fannie is maintained. “Mortgage insurance claims must be pursued in a way that will at all times protect Fannie Mae’s ...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recorded significant declines in the volume of single-family mortgages they securitized during the second quarter of 2011, according to a new analysis and ranking based on the Inside Mortgage Finance GSE MarketScope. The two government-sponsored enterprises generated a combined $155.0 billion in single-family mortgage-backed securities during the second quarter, down a hefty 40.6 percent from the first three months of the year. It was the slowest quarter in Fannie/Freddie MBS output since the final three months of 2008, the low ... [includes 3 data charts]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, Ginnie Mae and the government-sponsored enterprises should add another potential alternative servicing fee structure in their deliberations to revamp the compensation structure for residential servicing, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Last week the MBA sent a letter to the FHFA, Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pitch-ing the merits of a Reserve Account Proposal, requesting the proposal be included among the options expected to be released for public comment within the next month. “The Reverse Account Proposal would set up ...

The fledgling Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sees its role as helping credit markets work better to enhance viable homeownership and level the playing field in credit availability, according to key officials participating in the Mortgage Lending Industry Strategic Markets & Diversity Conference sponsored last week by ComplianceTech. “We realize now that building wealth and homeownership is a risky proposition and one that should not be taken lightly,” said Patricia McCoy, assistant director of mortgage and home equity at the CFPB. “Our job is to ...

Housing industry groups are making a noisy push to persuade policymakers to postpone (perhaps permanently) a planned reduction in the high-cost loan limits for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHA due to expire this fall. Late last week, the National Association of Home Builders released a study which concluded that an Oct. 1 reduction in the loan limits “will reduce housing demand and place downward pressure on home prices in major housing markets.” In February, the White House proposed to “shrink the government’s footprint” in housing finance and lure back ...