Tag Archives: Fannie Mae

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.

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.

Although the new qualified mortgage (QM) rules are expected to bring stability to loan manufacturing, the many nuances of compliance have resulted in doubling the cost of loan origination. This assessment was offered by Tom Showalter, chief analytics officer at Digital Risk. In an interview on Mortgage Markets Today, Showalter explained the threat of ""manufacturing risk,"" or the risk that key elements of data defining the loan are either corrupted or misrepresented.

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.

MountainView Servicing Group, provider of residential mortgage servicing rights (MSR) transaction and valuation advisory services, announced the offering of yet another Fannie Mae portfolio. Possessing an unpaid principal balance of just less than $760 million, the portfolio includes 100 percent fixed-rate and first-lien product, with 89.7 percent 30-year fixed-rate loans. In addition, the portfolio contains $464 million-about 61 percent-Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) servicing.

Lehman Brothers has reportedly sought approval to settle a $1.2 billion claim from Freddie Mac on money owed to the GSE before the company declared bankruptcy in 2008. Bloomberg reports Lehman is seeking approval on a settlement in the amount of $767 million. If approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, the settlement would untie money Freddie Mac had fought to claim priority on, allowing Lehman to pay other creditors seeking to collect on their own debts from the company.

Mortgage credit access opened up in January following a flat December, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) revealed Tuesday. MBA's Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI), a gauge of lending standards measured with data from the AllRegs Market Clarity product, increased 1.85 percent to an even 113 last month. MBA's latest index fits with Fannie Mae's January National Housing Survey, in which more consumers expressed their belief that getting a mortgage today would be ""easy.""

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) revealed in its latest refinance report that the GSEs have together reached a landmark three million refinances under HARP.