Based on the success of payment deferrals during the COVID-19 emergency and feedback from industry, FHFA has made the option a key part of loss mitigation for the GSEs.
In order to have a return on capital sufficient to attract private investors, the GSEs would have to charge g-fees of about 76 basis points, according to former Freddie CEO Don Layton.
Lenders had argued that any debt-to-income ratio calculated early in the mortgage process would be subject to change and possible redisclosure requirements.
Almost all of the decline in combined GSE profits was due to a spike in loan-loss provisions. But while Fannie’s provisions continued to grow in the fourth quarter, Freddie’s may have peaked in the third quarter. (Includes data chart.)
Deciding whether the GSEs should use FICO or VantageScore or both turned out to be the easy part. The hard part is going to be the multiyear process of figuring out how to use the scores together.