Tag Archives: Department of Treasury

Two Senators are drafting legislation that could potentially break up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to Bloomberg, in an effort to increase competitiveness in the secondary mortgage market? How do they plan on doing this, and what repercussions might legislation such as this have on the mortgage finance industry?

One of the largest GSE investors, Fairholme Funds sued the government in 2013 over the sweeping of GSE profits into Treasury. The lawsuit is still pending.

Also for Q2, Freddie Mac reported $3.9 billion in comprehensive income, a five-fold increase from Q1's total of $746 million. With the inclusion of September 2015's Dividend Obligation of $3.9 billion, Freddie Mac will have returned $96.5 billion to taxpayers. Dividend payments do not include the $71.3 billion bailout Freddie Mac received from Treasury in 2008.

As a result of the improvements Treasury has made to HAMP over the years, the number of denied HAMP applications has been steadily declining each year since 2012. That year, the number of denied applicants reached 998,000. In 2013, that number decreased by almost 50 percent down to 523,000. In 2014, the number dropped to 334,000, and for the first four months of 2015, the number was 100,000.

The U.S. Department of Treasury has priced auctions of preferred Capital Purchase Program (CPP) stock for five institutions as part of the government's strategy to wind down the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and recover remaining CPP investments, according to an announcement from Treasury.

Stegman, who has been with Treasury for four years, will be the main housing adviser for the Obama Administration in his new position with the NEC. He will be replacing Seth Wheeler, who is planning to leave the NEC in June after two years.

DeValk noted that when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken into conservatorship by the FHFA in September 2008, the GSEs agreed to pay quarterly fixed dividends to Treasury that were equal to 10 percent of the total amount of outstanding funding that Treasury had provided for the enterprises.

The letter, dated April 15, is addressed to Department of Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt, and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Richard Cordray. Ten housing groups signed the letter, which asks the regulators to investigate the investors for allegedly attempting to push borrowers into foreclosure instead of steering them toward loss mitigation plans.

Lambert was instrumental in starting Treasury's Making Home Affordable Program (MHA) in 2009, which the government began in response to the devastating financial crisis of 2008 and to help families avoid foreclosure. She has continued to promote the program for the last six years, during which time MHA has helped more than one and a half million families.

The step of setting aside a portion of GSE profits for capitalization of a cash window would achieve the goal of reducing taxpayer risk through risk sharing while preserving full small lender access, according to the letter. CHLA first addressed the subject last year in a letter to FHFA last July.