Tag Archives: GSEs

The Office of Inspector General for the FHFA found in a compliance review that the Agency's program to commission Housing Finance Examiners (HFEs) was not on track to meet its main objective, which was to produce conditioned examiners who were qualified to lead major risk sections of GSE exams.

Among the bills that passed in the Committee were H.R. 2243, the Equity in Government Compensation Act of 2015, which was introduced in May by Ed Royce (R-California). The bill passed by a vote of 57-1.

Counsel's Corner is an ongoing series in which DS News talks with default servicing attorneys around the country about the most pressing issues facing the default servicing industry. This installment features Debbie K. Hoffman, Chief Legal Officer with Florida-based Digital Risk.

Residential mortgage servicing rights sales and valuation advisory services provider MountainView Servicing Group announced Thursday that it is acting as adviser for the sale of a Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac portfolio with an unpaid principal balance (UPB) of about $3 billion.

One week after a U.S. Federal Court of Claims Judge ruled that his company's lawsuit against the government over its use of GSE profits could continue, Fairholme Funds CEO Bruce Berkowitz addressed investors on a conference call Tuesday morning, telling them that his company, one of the GSEs' biggest investors, has made "considerable progress" in its lawsuit against the government.

In a separate agreement the GSEs and FHFA are also reportedly considering programs that could reopen the door to guarantee some mortgages with down payments as low as 3 percent, including loans to first-time homebuyers, according to the Wall Street Journal. Fannie Mae stopped taking such loans last year, while Freddie Mac stopped guaranteeing them years ago.

Recently, Dave Stevens, head of the Mortgage Bankers Association, revealed a shocking statistic—the GSEs denied 56 percent of African American mortgage applicants. Many, including Fannie Mae, responded that the MBA's numbers overestimated the denial rate for minorities. A new blog post from the Urban Institute commented that the MBA’s denial rate wasn't too high; rather, it was much too low.

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) put out on Monday a "flash release" of its National Mortgage Risk Index (NMRI), a measure of the likelihood of purchase loan defaults under stressful economic conditions. According to the group, the index climbed last month to 11.89, indicating nearly 12 percent of loans would be at risk of default in the event of another downturn.

The National Association of Mortgage Field Services (NAMFS) recently issued a critique of an audit performed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Office of the Inspector General (FHFAOIG). NAMFS doesn't believe that the report properly assessed the over 15 million inspections done each year in the United States.

Amid continued rising home prices and rising mortgage rates, the number of refinances achieved through the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) is declining, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). Even a slight drop in mortgage rates to 4.3 percent for the month did not bolster February's HARP refinances.