GSEs

Going forward, Fannie Mae will be relying more on loan guarantee fee income from its single-family and multifamily businesses.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced Wednesday it had raised a cap on the amount of multifamily loans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can buy from lenders, boosting it to $35 billion effective immediately.

Industry groups are urging the Federal Housing Finance Agency to end the sweep of profits of the GSEs so that Fannie and Freddie can rebuild capital.

Freddie Mac won't make a dividend payment to the Treasury Department after declining interest rates and widening spreads on investments triggered a $354 million first-quarter loss for the mortgage finance giant.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco has selected Greg Seibly to be its new president and chief executive starting May 12. He will take over from Dean Schultz, who is retiring after 25 years at the helm of the bank.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., is seeking input from the Government Accountability Office and the Congressional Budget Office on the future of policies dealing with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Even while the FHFA finally embarked on a principal reduction plan, critics argued it was a dangerous idea that made Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac less safe while helping relatively few people.

FHFA Director Mel Watt acknowledged that the principal reduction program may seem "too small and too late."

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's experiments with selling credit risk to investors are a critical element of new plan to merge the two entities and move them out of conservatorship, but what form so-called credit risk transfers take could make a big difference.

The housing market has been improving but mortgage credit remains "stubbornly" tight on loans bought by the government-sponsored enterprises, according to a chief housing adviser at the White House.

Bankers are fighting back against a plan that would allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to invest in low-income housing tax credits, arguing they are critical for meeting Community Reinvestment Act requirements.

Five policy heavy-hitters issued a proposal this week to merge Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into a single government corporation as a way to move beyond the conservatorships of the two government-sponsored enterprises.

Two senior GOP lawmakers are warning regulators against preferential treatment for housing advocates and nonprofits in sales of nonperforming, government-guaranteed mortgages.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency appears poised finally to allow principal reductions, but it's been nearly a decade since the mortgage crisis and underwater borrowers are much fewer thanks to higher home values.

The agency may finally be reaching resolution on whether Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will allow principal reductions, two years into Director Mel Watt's tenure as agency director and nearly a decade after the mortgage bubble burst.

Ginnie Mae needs more, and better-paid, staff to keep up with growing risks on nonbank seller/servicers, the watchdog agency head said.

We are reminded frequently that policies with the best intentions often do not reach their intended recipients and at times lead to previously unforeseen issues.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gave $186 million to the National Housing Trust Fund, their first such contributions to a fund designed to provide construction and rehabilitation of rental housing for low-income families.

Radian Guaranty is the latest private mortgage insurer to announce a change to its pricing structure for borrower-paid policies.

Redwood Trust is "repositioning" its mortgage business by focusing mainly on jumbo loans, according to its top executives.