In a recent interview, a prominent hedge fund manager said the legal battle with the U.S. government regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s profits could last another five years. In 2012, investors sued Fannie and Freddie for agreeing to allocate the profit in a different way than what they thought they agreed to when investing in the GSEs, but recently it’s seemed the government is siding more with the Treasury and Federal Housing and Finance Agency than investors. If the Trump administration doesn’t stop the profit sweep, the fund manager said the Supreme Court could be the next step.

Monday, Fannie Mae reported that they expect a rebound in economic growth and consumer spending will resume its position as the biggest contributor. With labor and inventory shortages still prevalent, the housing market hasn’t changed very much and home prices are still on the rise. Based on their research, Fannie expects mortgage rates to remain supportive, but the outlook on existing home sales remains cautious.

This Friday, Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank President Loretta Mester will be speaking at The Policy Summit on Housing, Human Capital, and Inequality: Transforming Regional Economies—Growth and Equity through Policy and Practice. The Summit is focusing on economic growth during the continued recovery after the Great Recession. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, it is important to understand how economic growth can more equitably benefit low- and moderate-income individuals and communities. Mester will be doing the closing address at the Policy Summit.

Potestivo & Associates, P.C., who specializes in the real estate finance and credit industry, is pleased to announce two attorneys from their Chicago team have been promoted to partner, effective June 12. Kimberly J. Goodell and Caleb J. Halberg will each serve in their new capacity as Assistant Vice President – Managing Attorney and are the newest members of the firm’s Omni Executive Committee.

The Federal Housing and Finance Agency released their April 2017 Refinance Report Thursday showing falling total refinance volume as mortgage rates in March remained higher than the lows observed in 2016. Overall, mortgage rates decreased in April with the average 30-year fixed being 4.05 percent, down from 4.20 percent in March. Ten states in the U.S. accounted for over 60 percent of the Nation’s HARP eligible loans with a refinance incentive.

Good news for buyers: it’s a great time to get a mortgage. Today’s 30-year fixed rate mortgage is 2 percentage points lower than the average over the last 25 years. According to a weekly national survey, 30-year fixed mortgages rates remain at the lowest level in seven months.

International Document Services, Inc., a Mortgage document preparation vendor, announced it has incorporated a new document preview feature into its integration with LendingQB’s cloud-based loan origination solution. The feature allows LendingQB users to preview mortgage documents, such as the Loan Estimate or Closing Disclosure, before they are submitted to fulfillment. This enables lenders to spot and correct errors before the creation of the final document.

Homeowners are flocking to Florida according to a recent market report. Nationally, quarter-over-quarter home price growth slowed slightly from 0.9 percent to 0.8 percent, but this aggregate measure is disguising a growing regional divide. The West, Northeast, South, and Midwest are broken down to month-over-month and year-over-year growth.

Three former traders from a financial services company are on trial for conspiracy and fraud regarding mortgage-backed bonds, but in a report this week by Bloomberg writers Chris Dolnetsch and Matt Scully, they discussed the interesting question the jury is being asked: when is a lie is considered deceiving and when is it not? The three were falsifying price information in order to get the money managers to pay a higher price and receive more money. The defense argues that deception is seen so often in the profession that it was a non-issue.

After Monday’s release of the Treasury report on Core Principals of Financial Regulation, critics are saying the proposed changes will put the economy in great danger. Proponents feel the proper restructuring of regulation is imperative and applaud the Treasury’s report. Take a look at why as the industry reacts.