Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have been stepping up their repurchase requests since being put into conservatorship by the government in September 2008, as they try to manage the mountain of delinquencies on their books.
But as those requests multiply, it's clear lenders aren't just rolling over. In its quarterly SEC filing, Freddie said about $4 billion of loan repurchase requests were outstanding as of Dec. 31, 2009, up from $3 billion at the end of 2008. Nearly 30% of those requests had been outstanding for more than three months.
Lenders have complained that the GSEs are being too picky, pushing back loans for minor oversights.
In online poll, 35% of readers said Fannie and Freddie are finding any and every excuse to send a loan back, while 42% said the GSEs need to save taxpayers' money and buybacks are a risk mortgage banker sign up for, and another 23% said there was too much going on behind the scenes to make an informed judgement as to whether the companies are too aggressive in pushing loans back.
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