Housing

The Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a proposal Wednesday to codify recent changes to its reverse mortgage program and to provide additional protections for seniors, including a cap on annual interest rate increases.

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 government-sponsored enterprises' risk-sharing deals are being hailed as an innovative approach for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to offload credit exposure to private markets. But their growing popularity is raising questions about how these transactions should be reported in financial statements.

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.

The House passed a bill Thursday that would authorize state insurance commissioners to approve flood insurance policies for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other federally backed mortgages.

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.

The courts would not be getting involved in defining the reach of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau if the architects of the agency had instituted a commission to oversee it.

Freddie Mac has revised downward its economic forecast for the remainder of 2016 following a tepid first quarter, but still remains upbeat about the housing market.

Federal regulators unveiled a long-awaited proposal Thursday designed to target incentive-based pay arrangements for executives at banks and credit unions, the agencies' second attempt after their initial plan met fierce resistance.

WASHINGTON — Michael Wilson officially assumed the titles of president and chief executive of the merged Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines on Monday, a little sooner than expected.

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.

The National Association of Realtors is teaming up with a coalition of environmental groups, taxpayer advocates and insurance companies to push Congress on flood insurance reforms.

Freedom Mortgage of Mount Laurel, N.J., has agreed to pay $113 million to settle government allegations that it failed to comply with Federal Housing Administration requirements for originating and servicing FHA-insured loans.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is continuing to reject calls to slash the annual premium for the Federal Housing Administration despite a renewed push by the National Association of Realtors. But some predict the FHA may eventually cave in.

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

Quicken Loans plans to appeal a recent federal labor ruling that the Detroit lender and other companies owned by Dan Gilbert violated employees' rights.

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.