FHFA Director Mark Calabria on Bob Ryan: “Bob’s advice and counsel during my transition have been invaluable. I greatly appreciate his service at FHFA during the past five years and his role in helping ensure liquidity and funding for the nation’s housing finance system...”

Former Fannie Mae CFO Tim Howard says there is no economic reason the GSEs should hold capital comparable to large commercial banks. “Fannie and Freddie are not multi-product and multinational lenders. They are mono-line insurance companies, limited to a single asset type – residential mortgages – whose historical credit loss performance has been dramatically better than banks.”

How do you get out of a debt bubble? Answer: Raise taxes and cut spending, something U.S. politicians have been loath to do. Or you could print more money...

In terms of risk layering, some 10.5% of bank loans were in the lowest risk category, with high credit scores and low loan-to-value ratios. Just 8.8% of nonbank loans were in that bucket, according to Inside The GSEs.

Historically, Fannie sellers have repurchased far more loans ($49.64 billion) than have Freddie sellers ($29.94 billion). But most of that disparity occurred before 2014…

As we’ve noted before, Calabria is building a dream team of industry vets and policy experts, whose chief task likely will entail working with the Treasury Department on administrative reform…

In a new investor update filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, megaservicer Mr. Cooper (Nationstar Mortgage) says it has a tangible net worth ratio of 13.2%, as measured in accordance with standards set by the Federal Housing Finance Agency...

It stands to reason that as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue to shrink, they’ll need fewer employees, right? But what about their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency? If Fannie and Freddie are smaller, shouldn’t the FHFA be smaller?...   

Annaly and Barclays also like the idea of replacing Fannie and Freddie with several smaller MBS guarantors. At March 31, Annaly owned roughly $103 billion worth of agency mortgage-backed securities...

Of course, the whole point is moot though, isn’t it? Fannie and Freddie continue to be wards of the federal government. If they fail to meet a capital test, what’s the worst Uncle Sam can do? Put them in conservatorship? They’re already there...