Government

Under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA) requirements, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is obligated to submit an annual report to Congress concerning Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s guarantee fees. According to the FHFA report, the average level of guarantee fees charged has increased since 2009, when the report began. The guarantee fees are now two-and-a-half times their previous level from 2009 to 2014.

Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and the FHLBanks experienced a substantial increase in their net income for the first quarter. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released the Quarterly Performance Report of the Housing GSEs today analyzing the first quarter earnings and other contributing factors that boosted these GSEs’ incomes.

Witnesses presented new evidence at a recent House Subcommittee hearing that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) discriminated against its employees and retaliated against the whistleblowers. It was the fourth hearing in which the CFPB's employees or former employees have testified of discrimination and retaliation within the Bureau since the investigation of such allegations began in April 2014.

A recent poll from Rasmussen Reports titled "Voters Say No to Government Role in Neighborhood Diversity" found that the majority of American voters’ believe that the government should not get involved in tying different income levels together in an effort to diversify neighborhood across the U.S.

Former Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chair Sheila Bair has announced as the keynote speaker for the Third Annual Women in Housing Leadership Forum at the 12th Annual Five Star Conference and Expo on September 18 in Dallas, according to an announcement from the Five Star Institute.

The U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations recently approved the FY2016 Transportation, HUD (THUD), and related agencies Appropriations Bill. The major goals of the bill is to increase the efficiency and affordability of federal housing programs and provide funding for transportation and infrastructure priorities, working within the guidelines of the Budget Control Act.

According to new research by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) International Center on Housing Risk (ICHR), the FHA’s price cut was largely capitalized into the purchase of higher priced homes. The research reviewed over 2.5 million first-time homebuyer loans. Edward Pinto, the research author and co-director of AEI’s International Center on Housing Risk said that the effort to reduce mortgage premiums did little to expand access to middle-and lower-wealth borrowers, while the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and other housing interest groups reaped the benefits of the higher home prices.

For the first time, over 7,700 consumer complaints about problems they are facing with financial companies concerning mortgages, bank accounts, credit cards, and debt collection, among others, were released today by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on their Consumer Complaint Database, according to a press release.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday by a 5-4 vote in the case of Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. that disparate impact claims can legally be brought about under the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

More than half of the states plus the District of Columbia, along with more than a third of the nation's largest metro areas, were categorized as in the "stable" range in April on the strength of a healthy spring homebuying season, according to Freddie Mac's April 2015 Multi-Indicator Market Index (MiMi) released Wednesday.