Tag Archives: Freddie Mac

As the year comes to a close, details of the Middle Class Tax Cut and Job Creation Act are up in the air, and a few housing industry groups are speaking out about one aspect of the act. The Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Association of Home Builders, and the National Association of Realtors together composed a letter to Congress expressing concerns over a proposal to raise Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's guarantee fees to help cover the cost of extending the payroll tax cut.

Representatives from both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac upheld the companies' practice of assessing penalties against servicers who fail to meet defined timelines for processing foreclosures. Speaking at a mortgage banking conference in Dallas last week, GSE execs stressed that clearly the best outcome for both Fannie and Freddie is to keep the borrower in their home, but when that's not possible, it's critical that servicers complete the foreclosure process in a timely manner to clear bad loans from the pipeline.

Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia has thrown yet another idea into the mix for reforming the housing finance system. Isakson, himself a former real estate agent for 30 years, introduced legislation Thursday that would wean the secondary market off government support and pay taxpayers back for the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Isakson's bill would replace Fannie and Freddie with a new, temporary government-backed program to securitize mortgages. This transitional program would be turned over to the private sector after 10 years.

Servicers for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have completed almost 2 million foreclosure prevention actions for the two companies since they went into conservatorship in 2008, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) third-quarter report released Wednesday. More than half of these actions have been loan modifications, and of the remainder, about 676,500 have kept homeowners in their homes. About 269,700 were short sales or deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure.

BOK Financial Mortgage Group announced Thursday that it is now accepting applications for the recently extended and expanded Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP). The program applies to homeowners who currently have a Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae mortgage and who meet certain other eligibility criteria. HARP 2.0 is designed to help borrowers, including those who owe more than their home's value, to take advantage of low interest rates and other refinancing benefits.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced temporary eviction moratoriums on all single-family homes and two-to-four unit properties over the holidays. Both companies will enforce the moratorium from December 19 through January 2. The suspension will not affect the pre- or post-foreclosure processes. Servicers may continue the administrative processes involved in foreclosures, but evictions will be delayed until after the start of the new year.

Fixed mortgage rate averages remain near their all-time historic lows, fortifying high levels of homebuyer affordability throughout the country. Freddie Mac reported Thursday that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has averaged at or below 4.00 percent for five consecutive weeks now, while the 15-year fixed has hovered around 3.30 percent. Adjustable-rate mortgages ticked down slightly this week, averaging new record lows for the second straight week.

Twenty-one members of Congress sent a letter to Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Acting Director Edward DeMarco calling on him to allow - even encourage - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to start reducing principal balances for distressed homeowners. The lawmakers say underwater borrowers pose a greater risk of eventual default. They're advocating for principal writedowns, not ""as a kindness to homeowners,"" but to save taxpayers from future losses.

Edward DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), has announced the appointments of Richard B. Hornsby, as FHFA's COO and Jon Greenlee as the agency's deputy director of the division of enterprise regulation. Hornsby served at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco for 26 years, holding a variety of senior level management and banking supervision positions. Greenlee joins FHFA from KPMG LLP, where he was the managing director in the financial services regulatory advisory practice.

The Office of the Inspector General for the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA-OIG) submitted its semiannual report to Congress reviewing FHFA's actions from April 2011 through September 2011. The FHFA-OIG pointed out several positive developments over the six-month period, including an elimination of the ""golden parachute"" compensation packages often offered to terminated GSE executives. However, these were balanced by a list of areas in need of improvement, most notably that FHFA does not conduct its own reviews of critical operations.