Tag Archives: Fannie Mae

Fannie Mae has opened a mortgage help center in the Windy City in order to provide counseling and other services for struggling homeowners in the greater metro area with loans owned by the GSE. The new center in Chicago is the second facility and third announced partnership in Fannie Mae's planned series of mortgage help centers across the country. The GSE said it partnered on this initiative with Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, major mortgage servicers, and civic and community leaders from across the region.

The percentage of loans 90 or more days past due held by the nation's largest mortgage company has declined for three months in a row. According to a new monthly summary report released by Fannie Mae on Friday, the GSE's single-family serious delinquency rate dropped 15 basis points to 5.15 percent in May. That follows a decline of 17 basis points in April and 12 basis points in March. The March reading was the first time Fannie's delinquency rate had dropped since March 2007, when it was a mere 0.62 percent.

Fannie Mae is building the ""strongest book of business we've seen in the last decade,"" according to the GSE's president and CEO, Michael Williams. While tighter underwriting may mean fewer consumers are able to get loans and banks are holding credit close to their chests, Williams says the type of prudent lending that has taken hold in the aftermath of the housing bust is translating into higher quality loans for Fannie Mae - namely plain, old-school mortgages; credit scores of 760; and loan-to-value ratios of 70 percent.

In the first half of 2010, Fannie Mae provided $5.9 billion in investments to the multifamily rental housing market, according to a semiannual report released Tuesday. The multifamily unit at Fannie Mae said it has bolstered mortgage-backed securities (MBS) issuance since focusing its efforts on securitization and broadening the investor base in 2009. Of the $5.9 billion invested in the first of this year, $5.5 billion was delivered through MBS execution.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are beginning to initiate foreclosures at a faster pace. According to a new study from Lender Processing Services (LPS), GSE foreclosure starts have been accelerating and are currently at all-time highs. From May to June, foreclosures initiated by Fannie and Freddie jumped 21 percent. LPS says the recent momentum coincides with Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) cancellations, with most of the increase and volume concentrated in the very late stages of delinquency.

The Obama administration said Tuesday that it plans to deliver a proposal for housing finance reform to Congress by January 2011. Government officials will hold a conference on August 17 at the Treasury building in Washington D.C. to solicit input from industry stakeholders on the future of the housing finance system, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. The White House says the ""heads private shareholders win, tails taxpayers lose"" structure at the GSEs makes no sense for the nation...and change is coming.

Last month, Fannie Mae announced new policy changes intended to deter financially competent homeowners from walking away from their mortgage obligation by imposing stiffer penalties for strategic default - a phenomenon that has become increasingly more common as home prices have plummeted and more and more borrowers find that they owe more on their mortgage than the home is worth. But the analysts at Moody's Investors Service say the GSE may encounter snags ahead since figuring out who to penalize for strategically walking away will be a significant challenge and implementing the policy could be difficult.

In order to double its mortgage banking operation, Superior Bank of Alabama announced Tuesday that it will add more than 60 people to its existing operation.