Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are poised to see enhanced competition in the multifamily mortgage-backed securities market in 2014, but it remains to be seen whether the GSEs’ regulator will follow through on proposed restraints on their multifamily footprint. The two GSEs await fresh direction from the FHFA in terms of any possible further constriction of their multifamily activity, after they were directed in 2013 to reduce their multifamily loan purchases by 10 percent from the previous year.

Who at the GSEs (or at the Federal Housing Finance Agency) was responsible for telling Fannie and Freddie to set aside so much money for loan losses and were those assumptions way off base?

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are likely to find the multifamily MBS space to be noticeably more competitive this year as increasing levels of private capital respond to improving market conditions, one top government-sponsored enterprise official suggests. One of the most influential factors that will determine how much volume the GSEs do in multifamily will be “more competition in the market in 2014 than we saw in 2013,” thanks to increasing levels of private capital, according to Manny Menendez, senior vice president of multifamily capital markets and pricing for Fannie. Besides Freddie and FHA, the three other main competitors for Fannie in the sector are...

Most of what Fannie and Freddie earn in the fourth quarter will go directly into the coffers of the U.S. Treasury Department.

“It’s nearly impossible to get the information to the right person to vote on it,” said Bill Moliski, a managing director at SG Capital and former managing director at Redwood Trust.

The market produced $4.94 billion of new non-agency MBS during the fourth quarter, according to a new Inside MBS & ABS analysis and ranking, the weakest output of the year.

Besides Freddie Mac and FHA, the three other main competitors for Fannie in the multifamily sector are life insurance companies, banks and conduit lending programs.

Comments made Wednesday by the Treasury Department’s point man on GSE reform, Michael Stegman, did not go unnoticed by employees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Speculators in Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac junior preferred shares will benefit if they can prove loan loss reserves at the two were over-stated.

The integration of TILA and RESPA has "been a goal almost since the time the two statutes were issued, and certainly from the time the good-faith estimate began focusing on loan terms,” said Benjamin Olson of BuckleySandler.