GSEs

Fears about repurchase requests made by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac persisted beyond the crisis, but those fears don't match actual repurchase numbers.

Fearing that housing finance reform has fallen off the congressional priority list, bank and housing trade groups sent a letter to Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt on Wednesday to draw attention to the issue.

MFA Financial has carved out an impressive niche for itself by buying re-performing and nonperforming residential mortgages and securities.

Several civil rights and community development groups wrote Tuesday to urge the Federal Housing Finance Agency to recapitalize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Housing Finance Agency is set to make the sales of nonperforming loans by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac more transparent, including providing information on trends at the individual pool level, according to a top agency official.

Banks have rushed to the exits when it comes to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt securities. Federal liquidity rules seem to be prompting big banks to do so, but why small banks are unloading the bonds, too, is more of a puzzler.

FHFA Director Mel Watt also reiterated concerns regarding insurance companies and large bank members, saying that some Home Loan Banks have large exposures to a few individual members.

Presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton appears likely to embrace a recent plan to merge Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into a single government corporation if she wins the White House.

The June 25 launch, which will provide lenders with much more information about a borrower's credit history, will mark the first widespread use of trended data in the mortgage industry.

The Consumer Mortgage Coalition is arguing that the bill has serious flaws by allowing private insurers to undercut pricing on federal flood insurance policies by offering high deductibles and exclusions to homeowners with mortgages guaranteed by the government-sponsored enterprises.

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.