Tag Archives: Fannie Mae

Economic growth is expected to climb to 2.9 percent this year, up from 2.4 percent in 2014, according to Fannie Mae's February 2015 Monthly Economic Outlook released on Thursday. Fannie Mae predicts this economic growth will boost the sluggish housing market into recovery.

The delinquency rate on residential mortgage loans backed by Fannie Mae declined across the board in 2014 due to a number of reasons that include foreclosure alternatives, home retention solutions, completed foreclosures, improved loan payment performance, and acquisitions of loans with stronger credit profiles, according to Fannie Mae's recently released annual report.

Based on its net worth—about $3.7 billion—Fannie Mae said it will pay $1.9 billion in dividends to Treasury, per the terms of the GSEs' amended bailout agreement. As of March, the company will have paid a total of $136.4 billion to taxpayers on the $116.1 billion it drew as a result of the financial meltdown.

A sizable new portfolio of agency mortgage servicing rights (MSR) has come to market with days left to go before bidding ends.

The share of respondents in Fannie Mae's survey who said their household income is "significantly higher" than it was a year ago climbed 4 percentage points to a survey high of 29 percent, the company reported. Looking ahead, 48 percent said they expect their finances to improve in the next year, also a survey high. Overall, 44 percent of Americans said they believe the economy is on the right track, an increase of 3 percentage points and only a few points less than those saying the economy is headed the wrong way (49 percent). That optimism spurred 66 percent of those surveyed to say they would buy a home if they had to move, a jump from 61 percent at the end of 2014.

One week after a U.S. Federal Court of Claims Judge ruled that his company's lawsuit against the government over its use of GSE profits could continue, Fairholme Funds CEO Bruce Berkowitz addressed investors on a conference call Tuesday morning, telling them that his company, one of the GSEs' biggest investors, has made "considerable progress" in its lawsuit against the government.

Fannie Mae's gross mortgage portfolio continued its downward trend in December, falling at a compound annualized rate of 26.4 percent, according to Fannie Mae's December 2014 Monthly Summary released recently.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced on Friday proposed new minimum financial requirements for mortgage sellers and servicers to do business with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The proposed requirements include minimums for net worth, capital ratio, and liquidity criteria that must be met by servicers and sellers to do business with the GSEs.

While that prediction is still modest, Fannie Mae says it's strong enough to "drag last year's unspectacular housing activity upward," according to the report. Fannie Mae credits projections for continued low gasoline prices, firming labor market conditions, rising household net worth, improving consumer and business confidence, and reduced fiscal headwinds to usher in a year of steady, if "not yet robust" economic improvement that should lead to a higher rate of household formation in 2015.

Monthly refinance numbers moved in fits and starts throughout 2014, bouncing between a low of 105,059 in March and October's year-to-date high—though the trend in the year's latter half was largely upward as mortgage rates fell to nearly 4.0 percent.