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Inside The GSEs

December 2, 2009

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GSEs Face More Regulation Under FSIA

In yet another sign of the diminished influence the hamstrung Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are able to wield these days, Rep. Barney Frank, D-MA, once a chief defender of the GSEs, pushed an amendment to financial regulatory reform legislation before his House Financial Services Committee that would explicitly subject them to additional safety and soundness regulation. As originally... Read More

FHLB Non-Agency MBS Holdings Decline

The Federal Home Loan Banks saw their holdings in mortgage-backed securities slip to $151.93 billion in the third quarter, off just 0.6 percent from the previous period or down 12.3 percent from year-ago levels, the third consecutive quarterly decline, according to a review by Inside The GSEs of data provided by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Much of the year-over-year... [Includes one chart] Read More

Fannie Tapped for Monitoring Role Under MMCD

Fannie Mae has once again been called upon to provide a big assist to the federal government’s efforts to save millions of struggling homeowners from foreclosure. The latest summons came this week, when the Departments of Treasury and Housing and Urban Development announced the Obama administration’s Mortgage Modification Conversion Drive, the latest permutation of the Home Affordable... Read More

Fannie Updates HAMP as Mods, Delinquencies Rise

Fannie Mae last week announced some revisions to its requirements for reclassifying and removing mortgage loans from its mortgage-backed securities pools in order to facilitate the completion of loan modifications under the Home Affordable Mortgage Program. Under the new changes, effective immediately, before a mortgage can be removed from its respective pool for a HAMP modification... Read More

GSE Loan Buyout Rate to be High for Some Time

Delinquencies at Fannie and Freddie continue to accelerate, and that means that loan buyouts are on the way up. This, coupled with an anticipated delinquency rate for interest-only and hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages five times that of 30-year fixed-rate loans, suggests a high buyout rate for an extended period of time, according to a new prepayment outlook by a securitization research team at... Read More

Fannie Tries to Level REO Disposition Playing Field

Fannie Mae announced several initiatives last week to support neighborhood stabilization and promote home purchases by owner occupants at the temporary expense of investor buyers. Under the “First Look” program, owner occupants and homebuyers using public funds get exclusive consideration in purchasing Fannie-owned foreclosed properties for the first 15 days a property is on... Read More

Fed, Treasury Support of GSEs Grows, to Continue

Uncle Sam’s support of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks has grown to $1.13 trillion, after the Federal Reserve purchased about $83.26 billion in GSE mortgage-backed securities in November, and the Treasury Department pitched in another estimated $6.20 billion during the month. The Fed has also earned some $1.24 billion on its investments... [Includes one chart] Read More

FHLBanks See Good, Bad Votes in House Committee

Officials representing the Federal Home Loan Bank System were privately pleased to learn that the House Financial Services Committee recently rejected legislative language that would create a federal regulatory framework for covered bonds. FHLBanks fret that such instruments, while barely nascent right now in the U.S., would grow to become a viable threat to their advance business, which is... Read More

FHLBs, Office of Finance Insist on Accounting Input

The 12 Federal Home Loan Banks and the Office of Finance recently expressed support for some of the aspects of a Federal Housing Finance Agency proposal to expand the office’s board of directors and to create an audit committee, concepts born of the recent collapse of the mortgage market and the credit markets and the difficulty it caused in producing the system’s Combined Financial... Read More

News In Brief

Fannie Stock Slips Below $1 While Freddie Holds Steady: Fannie Mae once again finds the value of its stock drifting to dangerously low levels, after its common... Fannie Taps Retired Credit Suisse Exec for its Board of Directors: Jonathan Plutzik, a former top official at Credit Suisse, has been added to the Fannie Mae board of... Read More

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