Tag Archives: FHFA

According to the FHFA, the initial goal was to assist in building a Common Securitization Platform (CSP) and support the statutory obligation to ensure the liquidity of the nation’s housing finance markets issued by the FHFA. Taxpayers would also not have to suffer the cost of subsidizing Freddie Mac’s securitization of single-family mortgage loans with the Single Security.

In his speech, Watt highlighted that the FHLBanks are an important part of home financing, in that they provide a source of funding and access to the secondary mortgage market and other services to member institutions, especially smaller institutions that have little access these services.

The nearly two-month long court battle between the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and Nomura Holdings came to an end Monday when a federal judge found the bank liable for selling shoddy mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac prior to the 2008 financial crisis.

The government's Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) and Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) will be extended until the end of 2016, according to an announcement from FHFA Director Mel Watt on Friday. Speaking at the Greenlining Institute 22nd Annual Economic Summit, Watt announced a one-year extension of HARP, which was set to expire at the end of this year. The one-year extension until the end of 2016 for HAMP was previously announced in July. Both of the government's affordable housing programs began in 2009 in response to the housing crisis.

Royce said in a statement on his website that it is "unconscionable" that Freddie Mac would elevate the pay of its CEO to that level while taxpayers are still on the hook. The fact that the GSEs are still under conservatorship of the FHFA, where they have been since September 2008, is still a contentious one among politicians and stakeholders in the housing market.

Derivative losses were largely responsible for dropping Freddie Mac's net income by nearly $2 billion from Q3 to Q4 down to $227 million, but the GSE responded by nearly doubling that net income total in Q1 to $524 million. It marked the 14th consecutive quarter of profitability for Freddie Mac. In Q1, derivative losses declined to $2.4 billion, down from $3.4 billion the previous quarter.

Fitch Ratings affirmed that while Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac maintained a "Stable Rating Outlook" in April due to direct financial support from the U.S. government, the ratings company said it expected the controversial FHFA's conservatorship of the two Enterprises would continue indefinitely.

Compliance by states that do have an AMC regulatory body begins one year from the day the new regulations go live, which would put the deadline at the beginning of Q3 2016, according to FHFA. Compliance means adopting minimum registration and supervisory protocols for AMCs, including those that are subsidiaries of federally insured depository institutions.

The Dodd-Frank Act Stress Tests (DFAST) – Severely Adverse Scenario report indicated that the two GSEs would need a second taxpayer bailout, this time of up to $157.3 billion, under hypothetical adverse economic conditions that included a rise in the nation's unemployment level up to 10 percent by the middle of 2016; a decline in real GDP as large as 4.5 percent by the end of 2015 before recovery begins in 2016; and long term interest rates drop significantly while short-term rates remain near zero.

Several states currently allow HOAs to enforce the super-priority lien status and foreclose on a home non-judicially when the owner falls behind on his or her HOA dues—thus extinguishing the note held by the mortgagee, which in many cases suffers losses totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result.