Government

Freddie Mac released on Thursday its quarterly earnings report for the end of 2013, revealing yet another strong quarter—the ninth straight. Net income at the enterprise totaled $8.6 billion in Q4, bringing total 2013 profits up to $48.7 billion. According to the company, full-year earnings were spurred by the ongoing housing recovery, legal settlements totaling $7.7 billion, and a tax benefit of $23.3 billion.

FDIC-insured institutions earned a net income of $154.7 billion over the year in 2013, a 9.6 percent increase over the previous year, according to a report released by the agency. “[T]he industry continues to experience difficulty growing revenue,” said FDIC chairman Martin J. Gruenberg. He listed “[n]arrow margins, modest loan growth, and a decline in mortgage refinancing activity” as hindrances to revenue growth.

On a quarterly basis, home prices rose 1.2 percent, marking the tenth consecutive quarter of price increases, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's House Price Index report. The price appreciation that took place in the fourth quarter was "considerable, but more modest than in recent periods," said Andrew Leventis, principal economist for the FHFA.

According to estimates released Wednesday by the Census Bureau and HUD, new single-family homes sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 468,000, up 9.6 percent from December’s upwardly revised rate of 427,000. Compared to last year, January sales increased 2.2 percent. The overall increase should come as welcome news to a market in slowdown.

Last month’s implementation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) qualified mortgage (QM) guidelines did little to stem the rise of mortgage risk across the nation, according to the latest from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). The group’s National Mortgage Risk Index (NMRI), a measure of loan performance under stressful economic conditions, increased to a reading of 11.8 percent in January.

Per new regulations finalized last week, the GSEs will be required to file suspicious activity reports (SARs) directly with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) rather than through their own regulator. Developed in coordination with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), FinCEN’s final rule is intended to provide law enforcement and regulators with a more complete picture of mortgage fraud than that offered by less detailed reports currently provided to FHFA.

Posting a profit of $6.5 billion in the fourth quarter, Fannie Mae announced Friday it will pay the Treasury Department $7.2 billion in March, bringing its total dividend payments to the government to $121.1 billion—a full $5 billion more than what the enterprise drew following the financial crisis. Nevertheless, per Fannie's (and Freddie's) agreement with Treasury, the payments will continue.

After Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Deputy Director Steven Antonakes decried mortgage servicers for not doing enough to mend the industry after the recent housing crisis, one industry leader called his comments "inflammatory and without benefit to the audience." Ed Delgado, president and CEO of the Five Star Institute, believes the deputy director's remarks are not only ill-timed but also counterproductive.

The Census and HUD announced jointly Wednesday that housing starts in January ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 880,000, a 16 percent decline from December. The drop in starts came during a month in which homebuilder confidence in the single-family market (as measured by the National Association of Home Builders) measured at an index value of 57, reflecting general optimism.

A recently released audit of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's handling of aged repurchase demands finds the enterprises' fee collecting has been inconsistent--or in some cases nonexistent. ""By inconsistently waiving, enforcing, and excepting late fees through 2012, the Enterprise missed assessing up to $284 million in late fees that are now unlikely to be collected–losses that taxpayers ultimately bore,"" the Federal Housing Finance Agency's Office of the Inspector General (FHFAOIG) commented in the report.