Fannie’s Desktop Underwriter and Freddie’s Loan Product Advisor were both updated to include FHFA’s 2025 area median income figures. The changes affect eligibility for duty-to-serve and affordable housing programs.
FHFA Director Bill Pulte made some media appearances recently, explaining some of the actions he’s taking and detailing priorities involving the GSEs and Federal Home Loan Banks.
Critics say capital is not necessarily the main impediment to ending the conservatorship. A bigger problem is the lack of planning on what the GSEs should look like after they exit.
Poor internal controls at FHFA failed to prevent or correct errors totaling almost $4 million, according to the Government Accountability Office. The solution: better communication between accounting and other business units.
Like most GSE reform plans, the hedge funder’s plan to privatize Fannie and Freddie starts with Treasury writing down its senior preferred shares and FHFA sharply reducing the capital requirements for the GSEs.
NAMB has urged FHFA to end the GSEs’ use of LLPAs targeting second homes and investment properties and to lower the AMI threshold for borrowers to qualify for affordable housing programs.
CFPB researchers determined that, although loans for second homes declined after FHFA imposed steep fees on those loan types, the expected increase in primary-residence loans never materialized.
Although high interest rates have cut into GSE acquisitions, depriving PMIs of new business, they have also prevented homeowners from selling, allowing insurers to hold on to the business they have.
Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee asked the FHFA OIG to determine whether the agency’s director has broken any laws during his tumultuous first few weeks in office.
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