Mortgages

On Jun. 30, 2021. Dollars in thousands.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency in the Trump administration had been preoccupied with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s capital position. Acting Director Sandra Thompson has shifted the agency’s focus to affordable housing and fair lending.

CEO Thomas Cangemi is pushing to modernize a bank that for decades was focused largely on multifamily lending. The company has already agreed to buy the mortgage lender Flagstar Bancorp and its partnership with Figure Technologies, a blockchain-focused fintech, has the potential to make that acquisition more productive.

Fannie Mae should be applauded for allowing lenders to take rent payments into account when underwriting home loans. But lenders will need to embrace other credit scoring models if they hope to turn more renters into buyers.

Financial institutions will have until early October to weigh in about new risk-based capital requirements for nonbanks.

The guarantor of mortgage-backed securities has been without a Senate-confirmed president for four and a half years. The vacancy makes it difficult for other government agencies to coordinate housing objectives, according to stakeholders.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development and Federal Housing Finance Agency, which supervises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, formed a pact to share information and coordinate investigations of potential fair-lending violations.

The agency developed measures taking effect Aug. 31 that, among other things, will allow lenders to prioritize foreclosures of the most impaired loans and then focus on modifying salvageable ones.

The expanded credit access in its automated mortgage decisioning goes into effect in mid September.

Small increases in commercial real estate loan volumes, particularly at midsize banks, may be indicators that the sector has weathered the worst of the pandemic. Construction loan originations, which tend to fall sharply during a recession, are leading the way.