The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit last week gave PHH Corp. the green light to weigh in on the legal arguments the Justice Department made late last year in support of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s petition for an en banc rehearing of its dispute with the lender. The appeals court did so over the objections of the CFPB, and with 11 of the 12 judges in agreement and one not participating. PHH had argued that it ought to be able to respond to the second of two government arguments in favor of the review. Privately, some industry insiders thought...

Legislative reform of the government-sponsored enterprises doesn’t appear to be a high priority for Republican lawmakers, but President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to reduce the corporate tax rate could inadvertently prompt some GSE reform activity, according to industry analysts. As of the end of the third quarter of 2016, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had a combined $53.80 billion in deferred tax assets. The DTAs result from differences between the carrying amounts of existing assets and liabilities under generally accepted accounting principles and their respective tax bases. The DTAs are...

Thanks to stellar fourth quarter MBS issuance – coupled with higher interest rates at Dec. 31 – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are likely to report their best quarterly earnings of 2016, money that will go directly into the U.S. Treasury. According to interviews conducted by Inside Mortgage Finance this week, the general consensus among observers is that the two government-sponsored enterprises will post a combined profit north of $5.5 billion. In 2016, the two guaranteed...

In general, the Treasury nominee said his goal is to find a “bipartisan solution” to Fannie and Freddie...

One industry source noted: “On January 20, President Trump will be issuing an executive order that freezes all past actions over a certain period of time. The FHA premium reduction gets swept into this.”

DB was faulted for failing to disclose second liens on mortgages in MBS and for concealing refreshed credit scores that were worse that the credit scores disclosed to investors.

One mortgage insurance lobbyist, when informed of the possibility, called it “great news” while two lenders we interviewed said it was an awful development…

Is this the last week on the job for CFPB Director Richard Cordray? Speculation is suddenly growing fast and furiously that the director’s time is about over, that President-elect Trump will use his signature line from his Apprentice television show, “you’re fired” shortly after he is inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017. What took this once-peripheral issue abruptly into overdrive are press reports that retired U.S. Congressman Randy Neugebauer, R-TX, met with the president elect at Trump Tower in New York City last week to discuss becoming the new head of the CFPB. Neugebauer, the former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee’s Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee, reportedly has not been offered the job, as of press time, and ...

With the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States now just days away, anxiety among defenders of the CFPB that its director, Richard Cordray, may be booted is intensifying, prompting some of his more vocal supporters to make impassioned public pleas to defend him and preserve the agency he heads. Up on Capitol Hill, Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee urged the new president to “reject the Wall Street agenda” and not remove Cordray from his post. “Any attempts to remove Director Cordray from his position are without historical precedent, and intended solely to distract the director and the bureau from its important work protecting servicemembers, students and other borrowers from financial predation,” the ...

Late last week, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals disregarded the objections of the CFPB and gave PHH Corp. permission to respond to the federal government’s arguments in support of en banc review of the court’s earlier three-judge panel decision.“Upon consideration of petitioners’ motion for leave to file a supplemental response to petition for rehearing en banc, the opposition thereto, and the reply, it is ordered that the motion be granted,” 11 of the 12 judges wrote in an order issued Jan. 13. PHH’s supplemental response is due Jan. 27, 2017, and is not to exceed 15 pages. Back in October, the three Republican appointees ruled that the CFPB’s leadership structure involving a single director who can be ...