For the third time in as many years, the U.S. Federal Reserve decided to raise the federal funds rate by 25 basis points this week, as widely expected – only this time, the Fed didn’t wait until the very end of the year. The FOMC’s revised projections are for two additional quarter-point rate hikes later this year, three next year and three or four the year after. World stock indexes rallied...

Ginnie Mae’s outdated organizational structure and staff levels have made it difficult for the agency to properly monitor and mitigate the risk posed by the increasing number of nonbanks participating in its MBS programs, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s inspector general. In a recent briefing paper, HUD Inspector General David Montoya highlighted challenges Ginnie faces in monitoring nonbanks, adding that HUD is currently being audited by the IG to gauge its capacity to track and supervise nonbanks, said Montoya. Ginnie acknowledged...

Tax reform may have a significant impact on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, before federal policymakers get around to resolving the long-running conservatorships of the two government-sponsored enterprises. Reducing the corporate tax rate is a big component of the Trump administration’s tax reform plan, but it could force the GSEs to write down the value of their deferred tax assets. “It is...

In a prominent Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholder case, the government was ordered to go back through thousands of documents related to the Treasury sweep to determine whether they fall under the executive privilege that has been more narrowly defined. In an attempt to make sure the government asserted privilege properly on the 11,000 documents it is withholding, Federal Claims Court Judge Margaret Sweeney asked it to reexamine the large batch and turn over any that don’t merit secrecy by April 17. This order follows...

As interest rates increase and refinance business shrinks, some lenders are putting an emphasis on non-qualified mortgages. “CashCall Mortgage’s business in refinance has fallen off; it is now targeting a different section of the marketplace,” Joe Tomkinson, chairman and CEO of Impac Mortgage Holdings, said during the nonbank’s recent earnings call. “Now we are bringing a product that is very real estate friendly to the marketplace, and we will see an increase in that.” Most of ...

The volume of home mortgages outstanding continued to grow during the final three months of 2016, no thanks to the commercial banking industry. Recently released data from the Federal Reserve show $10.266 trillion of mortgage debt outstanding at the end of last year. That was up 0.7 percent for the quarter and reflected a 2.3 percent gain for the full year. The market still has a long way to go to catch up to the $11.240 trillion of mortgage debt outstanding at the end of 2007, but growth has been steady since bottoming out in mid-2014. The agency market continued...[Includes two data tables]

Nearly all of the discussion related to the ongoing legal battle between PHH Corp. and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has involved either questions about the bureau’s interpretation and enforcement of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act or issues having to do with the constitutionality of the CFPB. But the role played by the administrative law judge early in the bureau’s enforcement action has surfaced, with potential significance in the eyes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which recently granted the agency’s request for a rehearing by the full court. To adjudicate the matter early on, the CFPB borrowed...

The Trump administration has subtly signaled its support for PHH Corp. in the mortgage lender’s long-running dispute with the CFPB over alleged violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. In recent days, the Department of Justice asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for permission to file an amicus brief in the case by March 17, one week after the deadline the court had given PHH to file its response to the court’s decision to grant the CFPB’s request for an en banc rehearing.The court has since granted the administration’s request for the one-week extension. In its request, the Justice Department said, “As this court recognized in calling for the views of the ...

The attorneys general of 15 states came to the defense of PHH Corp. and related parties in their case with the CFPB over the agency’s interpretation and enforcement of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.The AGs of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin focused on the constitutional issues in the case, with not a single mention of the statutory questions related to the act. The AGs made three major arguments in support of PHH’s position. First, they asserted that the separation of powers plays a critical role in preserving the division of authority within the federal system, and the CFPB’s governance structure violates the separation of powers ...

PHH Corp. and related parties again made a full defense of their position in their legal struggle with the CFPB over alleged misconduct under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. PHH made five primary arguments to the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the first of which was that the CFPB is unconstitutionally structured and must be invalidated. …