Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders may finally get some modest compensation for FHFA’s decision to allow Treasury to seize all of the profits of the government-sponsored enterprises.

Lenders argue that the cumulative cost of verification of income and employment, especially the electronic kind, is unreasonable and should be scrutinized by FHFA.

The Foreclosure Abuse Prevention Act, signed into law in 2022, blocks lenders from avoiding New York’s six-year statute of limitations on foreclosures by simply canceling the foreclosure. New language in Fannie’s loan modification agreement may negate FAPA’s block.

The last-minute decision by the Trump administration to reduce GSE purchases of speculative and riskier loans had some unintended consequences.

Appraisers have dramatically reduced the use of prohibited words in their valuations, a sign Fannie has made strides in limiting bias against protected classes.

Mortgage industry stakeholders said Freddie Mac’s pilot program to alleviate repurchase requests is a better option than Fannie Mae’s new notice of potential defect.

Title insurance advocates are incensed by FHFA’s announcement that a once-dead title waiver pilot is alive and well.

Lenders will now be able to use a single verification report to validate income, employment, assets, positive rent payment and cash flow history. However, the report must have at least 12 months of data.

The regulator delayed implementation of the controversial bi-merge scoring model and accelerated the release of historical credit score data.

FHFA said proposed changes to the American Survey of Mortgage Borrowers will help to inform oversight of the GSEs and FHLBanks.