Tag Archives: FHFA

The GSEs’ exposure to credit risk from mortgages originated during the years of the housing bubble continues to be “significant but declining,” according to the FHFA’s Performance and Accountability Report for Fiscal Year 2015. But in addition to experiencing a decline in exposure to credit risk, the GSEs have also experienced significantly declining revenues.

The FHFA said that beginning December 1, 2015, local community organizations will be able to review and purchase foreclosed properties owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the newly added 18 metro areas before they hit the public market.

In August 2015, the GSEs completed 17,806 foreclosure prevention actions, over half of which (11,382) were permanent loan modifications. August’s total included both home retention actions and home forfeiture actions and brought the total of foreclosure prevention actions completed by the GSEs to 3,578,227 since the conservatorships began in September 2008.

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) sent a letter to President Obama, calling on the Administration to end the conservatorships and recapitalize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

A recent report found that nationwide, there are approximately 20,000 so-called zombie foreclosures, which are residential properties that have been vacated by the owner but the foreclosure process has not yet been completed. With the owners gone, these abandoned properties are typically not maintained by banks, which potentially breeds blight, attracts violent crime, and brings down values of surrounding properties.

Robinson contends that despite posting record losses for 2007 and the first half of 2008, shortly before the government seized control of them, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were always capable of paying their debts and were never in danger of insolvency. The complaint contends that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took a relatively conservative approach to investing in mortgages during the years 2004 to 2007, the so-called “housing bubble,” during which many institutions were not conservative where the mortgage market was concerned.

The conservatorships were required by law to put Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a “sound and solvent condition” but this focus at times conflicted with other public policy objectives, such as the aggressive enforcement of the GSEs of “representations and warranties” whereby the firms “put back” large volumes of defaulted mortgages to their originators, according to the authors.

With July's total of nearly 20,000 foreclosure prevention actions, the Enterprises have now completed 3.56 million such actions since the start of the conservatorship in September 2008, according to FHFA.

According to a recent report from the FHFA Office of the Inspector General, however, the Agency's budget review and approval process has fallen short of achieving that stated purpose due to a number of factors that include late timing, cursory-level analysis, and inadequate resources.

REO inventory for the GSEs totaled about 88,000 at the end of Q2, a decline of 14 percent from the end of Q1 (about 102,000) and 34 percent from the end of Q2 2014 (134,000), according to FHFA.