Government

The fact that the Enterprises remain in conservatorship of the FHFA has been a contentious topic among lawmakers and housing industry stakeholders in recent months. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac returned to profitability in 2012, but those profits declined substantially from 2013 to 2014. Recent reports, including one from the FHFA Inspector General, have warned that the profitability of the GSEs might not continue even though the conservatorship probably will.

The FHFA now requires that Federal Home Loan Banks and their Office of Finance include demographic data related to their boards of directors in their annual minority and women inclusion reports to the agency. The banks also must now include descriptions of their outreach activities and strategies designed to promote diversity in nominating or soliciting nominees for positions on boards of directors.

Specifically, the complaint said that Genuine Title offered purchasing, analysis and consumer data to loan officers and created mailers on the officers’ behalf. In exchange for this, the officers then referred buyers to Genuine’s closing services. Loan officers also allegedly received cash payments through their individual companies.

According to the FOMC’s statement, this decision was made to “support continued progress toward maximum employment and price stability” and largely factored in energy prices, household spending and incomes, unemployment rates, inflation and other economic influencers. Despite opting to continue with its current interest rates, the FOMC’s statement did recognize that increases in the future are possible.

The Senator contends in his letter that only Congress can create government officers and that Congress has not given HUD the power to bestow an assistant secretary's responsibility onto a principal deputy assistant secretary. Grassley pointed out in his letter that Congress passed the Vacancies Reform Act in 1998 that provided several mechanisms to fill vacancies in government offices, and "[c]reating new job titles is not among the allowable mechanisms listed."

When the Federal Reserve concludes its monetary policy meeting on Wednesday, the nation could see increased interest rates for the first time in nine years. . . . Experts say there are dozens of factors that must be considered before the Fed can make a decision, and a questionable economy makes it even more difficult.

Freddie Mac's total mortgage portfolio expanded at an annualized rate of 0.9 percent in March, the sixth time in the past seven months the portfolio has expanded, while the serious delinquency rate on single-family loans fell to its lowest level in six and a half years, according to Freddie Mac's March 2015 Monthly Volume Summary released on Monday.

Last week, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker had proposed a plan for overhauling the federal regulatory system—one that included eliminating the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) altogether. Since dubbed the “Volcker plan,” the head of the OCC, Thomas Curry, has come out against the proposal, saying it would be ineffective at solving the nation’s regulatory issues.

The U.S. Department of Justice sued Bank of America in August 2013, accusing the bank's Countrywide division of misrepresenting the mortgage-backed securities it sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the years leading up to the financial crisis through a program known as the High Speed Swim Lane (HSSL, commonly known as "Hustle").

The government alleges that Quicken had a "value appeal" process in place where Quicken would request an inflated value for a home appraisal if the appraisal was too low to approve for a loan, and that the lender granted "management exceptions" in which managers would allow underwriters to break the rules to approve a loan. According to the complaint, Quicken's most senior executives were aware of these practices based on several emails.