GSEs

The most recent outcry came from four housing groups that warned lawmakers last week that the proposal by the Federal Housing Finance Agency "would make harmful changes" to the FHLB membership rules.

While Congress has been unable to pass housing finance reform, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have done a good job of adhering to some of the spirit of recent bipartisan legislation, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics.

Despite pledges last year to move "aggressively" to implement new credit scoring models at the government-sponsored enterprises, the Federal Housing Finance Agency's effort appears to have stalled.

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of senators reintroduced a bill Wednesday that would prohibit lawmakers from using certain housing finance fees to offset unrelated government spending.

Senator Elizabeth Warren is withdrawing her support for a Republican bill that had been on the fast track to bar the Treasury Department from selling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac preferred shares, according to a person familiar with the matter.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week, including banks' subpar shareholder value and how big-data advocates can better communicate with critics who worry about the technology's potential discriminatory effects.

The refinance mortgage market's unexpected resilience in 2015 has come as the result of a number of well-timed factors coalescing to create a welcomed surprise to lenders.

The rising costs to service mortgages reflects a market where there are not only downsides to being too small, but hurdles to being too large — raising the question of whether there's a middle ground where servicers are not too big, not too small, but just right.

The key to housing finance reform is a new securitization model that allows the private sector to price and absorb the majority of housing credit risk.

Every consumer with a 401(k), retirement account or brokerage account ought to care about whether the government has the right to unilaterally amend a company’s operating agreement.