Fannie and Freddie, the linchpin of the nation’s MBS market, may never get out of conservatorship. Right? Actually, they might. A pending risk-based capital rule could play a role in the drama.

Industry insiders are speculating whether former FHFA Director Mark Calabria delayed the release of the 2020 stress tests results because they contradicted his proposed capital rule.

Thanks to restrictions placed on the GSEs, investment-property mortgages are flowing into non-agency MBS. Some lenders are issuing deals on their own while others are turning to aggregators like Credit Suisse.

Despite protests that existing yield maintenance protects investors from prepayment risk on agency CMBS, FHFA directed the Federal Home Loan Banks to limit their exposure.

FHFA proposes tougher housing goals for the GSEs and SFA will require attendees at the upcoming SFVegas conference to be vaccinated.

In the past six years, repos backed by MBS nearly doubled to roughly $400 billion a day, a new Federal Reserve study found.

Purchases of refinance loans since December 2020 generated roughly $6.6 billion in adverse market refi fees for Fannie and Freddie, boosting them to a seven-year high in net income in the second quarter. (Includes data chart.)

Why compete against the Fed for agency MBS? Sometimes, shrinking is a better strategy, which is what the mega "mREITs" are doing.

Despite various penalties for early prepayments, FHFA believes multifamily MBS issued by Fannie and Freddie present risk for the FHLBanks. Fannie thinks otherwise.

The end of the QM patch — thanks to a maneuver by the FHFA and Treasury — could help the non-agency market compete with the GSEs.