Tag Archives: Ginnie Mae

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has issued a notice announcing regulatory changes for modifying VA-guaranteed home loans. According to the department, the new rule makes VA loan modifications more flexible and encourages loan holders to modify more loans. It changes the requirements related to maximum interest rates allowed on modified VA loans and the items that can be capitalized into the modified loan amount.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has issued a 28-page document that presents several alternatives it plans to consider for how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac compensate mortgage servicers. The agency says today's model does not provide the flexibility needed for the servicing of nonperforming loans during times of high defaults. Alternatives being considered include a fee-for-service compensation structure for nonperforming loans and reducing or eliminating the minimum servicing fee for performing loans.

On Wednesday a House subcommittee held a hearing to examine private sector involvement in the housing market, in order to determine if the high amount of government participation is a hindrance to the sector's recovery. Rep. Judy Biggert, subcommittee chair, said government intervention in the housing market reached record levels during the financial crisis, resulting in a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of billions of dollars. The hearing examined options for removing barriers to private investment in the housing market.

Income and expense data released by the Federal Reserve this week shows the central bank is earning a pretty penny from its investments in mortgage securities. The Fed began buying mortgage bonds from Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae in November of 2008 to help prop up the nation's deteriorating mortgage markets. In 2009, Fed officials reported that these efforts, combined with its purchases of Treasury securities, yielded a $46.1 billion profit. In 2010, earnings on those investments jumped to $76.2 billion.

Fewer mortgage-related firms closed their doors during 2010 than in 2009, according to newly released industry data. Including mortgage companies, retail and wholesale credit unions, and federally insured banks, the report tracked 201 mortgage-related business operations that either failed or were shut down during 2010. The casualty list was smaller than 2009's count, which stood at 230 mortgage-related fatalities - the most since 1998, when the report was first issued.

Freddie Mac announced Tuesday that beginning in January 2011, the company will begin disclosing pool-level delinquency data on a monthly basis for all single-family Freddie Mac Participation Certificate (PC) and Giant PC securities. Freddie Mac says providing this delinquency disclosure data at the pool level will make the company's delinquency disclosures consistent with an industry practice previously established by Ginnie Mae.

The U.S. Federal Reserve is in the same boat as the banks now, dealing with a mortgage portfolio that's riddled with deficiencies and delinquencies. The central bank's New York branch has been saddled with a heap of souring loans from the assets it picked up to support the 2008 bailout of Bear Stearns. And now, as more and more of these loans - both residential and commercial - fall into default, the New York Fed is faced with a dilemma: to foreclose or not to foreclose.

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.