Secondary Market

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were shy of meeting their low-income and very low-income home purchase goals, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) annual housing report. Currently, the GSEs, the Federal Housing Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs – all government agencies – serve as the principal sources of liquidity in the mortgage market.

A turnaround in housing helped drive Freddie Mac to a $2.9 billion profit in the third quarter, the GSE reported. Freddie Mac's net earnings dipped slightly under the $3.0 billion reported for Q2, but it helped keep the company from making any additional Treasury draws. In addition, Freddie's comprehensive income of $5.6 billion in Q3 allowed it to pay a $1.8 billion dividend on senior preferred stock.

Goldman Sachs is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to dismiss a mortgage securities class action lawsuit that the company says could cost Wall Street tens of billions of dollars, according to a report from Reuters. The bank is facing a suit from the NECA-IBEW Health & Welfare Fund, which owned mortgage-backed certificates underwritten by Goldman. The fund is suing on behalf of investors who say they were misled about the securities' risk, Reuters reports. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York decided in September to allow the lawsuit to go ahead on the basis that the NECA-IBEW is acting for investors whose claims ""implicate the same set of concerns"" as its own.

The country's largest life insurance provider announced it is selling its mortgage servicing portfolio to one of the country's biggest mortgage servicers. MetLife, Inc., announced an agreement to sell MetLife Bank, N.A.'s mortgage servicing portfolio to JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but MetLife revealed in a statement the portfolio is worth approximately $70 billion. As a result of the purchase, Chase's $1.1 trillion servicing business is expected to grow by more than 5 percent.

The mortgage market may be the largest market for consumer finance, but the sector lacks a comprehensive national database, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). This is why the federal agencies are coming together to create a national mortgage database. Borrower profiles, payment history, and the mortgage product and terms will be included in the database, which will be updated monthly.

Cetip, a large private asset clearinghouse based in Brazil, will partner with technology provider FNC. Through the partnership, Oxford-Mississippi-based FNC, Inc. will apply its technology solutions to the Brazilian mortgage industry.

If Hurricane Sandy has any impact on the performance of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), it will probably be one that is short-term, according to Fitch Ratings. The global rating agency says a ""modest and temporary increase in mortgage delinquency could occur"" after assessing the potential impact of the storm that has devastated areas in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast coast.

The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) announced the closing of U.S. Central Bridge Corporate Federal Credit Union (U.S. Central Bridge). The closing comes after three years of efforts to stabilize the corporate credit union sector, the agency stated in a release Monday.

U.S. home prices continued to increase in August as the Case Shiller 20-city Home Price Index increased 0.9 percent to its highest level since September 2010. The 20-city index is up 2.0 percent in the last year. The 10-city also rose 0.9 percent in August, increasing to 158.62, 1.3 percent ahead of August 2011 and the highest level since October 2010. The monthly gain in each index was slower than in July, when the 10-city index went up 1.5 percent and the 20-city index improved 1.6 percent. July also saw gains in all 20 index cities.

The cumulative default rate for commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) in the U.S. rose over the third quarter, largely due to an increase in defaults among office loans, according to the latest data from Fitch Ratings. The rate rose from 13.2 percent in the second quarter of this year to 13.5 percent in the third quarter, according to Fitch. The total amount in CMBS loans that defaulted in the third quarter was $2.2 billion. The total number of newly defaulted loans during the quarter is 119.