In his comments to reporters, FHFA Director Mel Watt did not rule out Fannie and Freddie engaging in principal reductions to help troubled consumers who have GSE loans.

How much have their balance sheets shriveled over the years? In September 2008, the month in which Treasury placed the GSEs into conservatorship, Fannie alone had a gross mortgage portfolio of $761 billion

Before joining the FHFA in late 2011, Hornsby spent 26 years at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the last 10 under Janet Yellen, who is now the nation’s central banker.

“The first thing we found is that homeowners need to know that they’ve been assigned a trusted advisor who will help them navigate the work out process,” explained one Fannie Mae official.

Freddie CEO Don Layton warns that staffers “at all levels” would flee the secondary market giant amid the five-year transition period, citing several provisions of the bill that are detrimental to employees.

MBA believes the imposition of compensatory fees has morphed into a risk-sharing mechanism that shifts the costs of the prolonged foreclosure process from the GSEs onto mortgage servicers.

Lobbyists tracking the bill now believe that a “negotiated” final measure will not be ready for a full committee vote until possibly mid-May.

“There are more cases on the way,” said Benjamin Olson, an attorney with Buckley Sandler.

“The examiner-in-charge apparently thought that the owner was lying, and the CFPB now wants to question him under oath,” principal Joe Garrett writes in a note to his clients.

So, what does this mean for the industry? Answer: That the Mortgage Mutual Insurance Fund likely will return to health even faster and that maybe there’s room for FHA to cut premiums.