Government

As the spring homebuying season comes to a close and Americans cope with the uncertain after effects of the Greek crisis on the economy, the U.S. Treasuries lowered average fixed mortgage rates down to 4.04 percent, according to Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) results.

Federal housing officials that are in place to monitor and control thousands of government-backed loans worth millions of dollars have not handled these loans correctly for Native Americans. According to the Office of Inspector General (OIG) review for HUD's Office of Loan Guarantee (OLG) did not provide adequate oversight of the Section 184 Indian Home Loan Guarantee program, resulting in an increased overall risk to the program.

In the last eight years, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have guaranteed at least half of all new mortgage originations. In a report released on Thursday by the Urban Institute (UI), authors Laurie Goodman, director of Housing Finance Policy Center at UI and Karan Kaul, a research associate at UI determined that the two GSEs play an important, indisputable part in the U.S. mortgage market, but also pose a huge risk to taxpayers.

The debate over whether "too big to fail" has ended and the criteria for designating a bank holding company as "systemically important" under Dodd-Frank has continued this week as lawmakers convened to discuss the controversial law and its effect on the American financial system.

Although Federal Reserve officials determined that economic activity is expanding moderately and job gains are increasing, the federal funds rate will remain the same at a target range of 0 to ¼ percent, according to the recent Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) June meeting.

Freddie Mac has added another innovation to its suite of credit risk transfer offerings. According to a recent press release, the Enterprise added its first two Agency Credit Insurance Structure (ACIS) transactions that provide coverage based on both first loss and actual losses realized on a reference pool of residential mortgages.

Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and Common Securitization Solutions, LLC (CSS) jointly announced on Wednesday the development of an Industry Advisory Group. The group will provide feedback and share information on efforts to build the Common Securitization Platform (CSP) and implement the Single Security.

HUD announced Wednesday the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Final Rule, which will help communities that receive HUD funding get the help they need to meet fair housing obligations in the use of HUD funds.

In May, the amount of open, unfilled construction sector positions increased over a slightly downwardly revised April estimate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) and National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) analysis presented by Robert Dietz on their Eye on Housing blog. The number of construction jobs increased from 137,000 in April to 149,000 in May on a seasonally adjusted basis.

Consumer attitudes toward the current condition of the home selling market and future home rental prices may launch purchase activity forward for the rest of 2015, according to Fannie Mae’s June 2015 National Housing Survey. Optimism among consumers about the housing market has reached new survey highs and strong job and income growth are making consumers appear more favorable in the selling market, indicating a possible increase in the existing home supply.