Tag Archives: FHFA

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW) a boutique investment bank and broker-dealer, recently released its predictions for the mortgage market for the year 2013, entitled Watching Grass Grow: Mortgage Reform in 2013. As the title implies, KBW does not expect major changes in the New Year. However the investment bank does expect some ""modest changes in the mortgage landscape driven by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA).""

Year-to-date, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have refinanced nearly 800,000 loans through the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), the Federal Housing Finance Agency reported Thursday. Since HARP's 2009 inception, the program has refinanced 1.8 million loans, with 790,619 of those loans refinanced in 2012 as of October. In October alone, more than 81,613 homeowners were refinanced through the program. Underwater loans continued to find relief through the program, with a little less than half of the loans refinanced in October in negative equity.

The winter season has not stopped home prices from posting both monthly and yearly gains, according to recent reports, and the Federal Finance Housing Agency's (FHFA) October home price report was no different. According to the agency's Home Price Index (HPI), home prices in October rose 0.5 percent from September and 5.6 percent from October 2011. The index current sits 15.7 percent below the April 2007 peak.

Speaking before the Brookings Institution in Washington, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan raised the issues of whether homeownership is right for everyone and how the mortgage market will be financed in the future. While most Americans continue to include homeownership in their personal image of the American dream, Moynihan says, ""as a just democratic society, we owe all our citizens a safe, good place to live, but a roof over one's head doesn't always have to come with a mortgage. In some cases, it shouldn't come with that.""

Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) deputy director Stephen Cross will retire from his post in March 2013, according to an announcement from acting director Edward DeMarco. Cross has served as FHFA's deputy director of the Division of Federal Home Loan Bank Regulation since the agency's creation in 2008.

FHFA is directing both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to work together with the agency on developing industry-wide servicing data standards, according to updates from the GSEs. The news standards are a component of the Uniform Mortgage Data Program (UMDP) and will go by the name Uniform Mortgage Servicing Dataset (UMSD).

Edward DeMarco's days directing the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) may be numbered, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. ""People familiar with the discussions"" told The Wall Street Journal the White House is preparing to nominate a new director. According to those sources, administration officials are still in the process of gathering names for potential nominees.

With about one-third of the American population residing in rental housing with climbing rents even despite largely stagnant incomes, the Center for American Progress argues for continued participation of the federal government in the multifamily housing market. Specifically, the organization supports a federal guarantee on multifamily mortgages. CAP says the Federal Housing Finance Agency ""appears poised to pursue plans to privatize the multifamily mortgage market."" However, CAP says doing so would ""be a big mistake.""

In prepared remarks delivered before SIFMA members Thursday, Federal Finance Housing Agency (FHFA) Acting Director Edward DeMarco addressed the current state of the secondary mortgage market and the agency’s steps toward building a better market for the future. Part of the process of improving the market is by bringing the ""conservatorships to a conclusion,"" while strengthening the private sector's role in housing finance, DeMarco contended. As it now stands, DeMarco said, ""The secondary mortgage market infrastructure that served this country for many years is broken.""

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac refinanced more than 90,000 mortgage loans through the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) in September, bringing the program's total reach to 1.7 million since its inception in 2009, according to the latest refinance report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The rate of HARP refinances has increased since the program was revised in the fall of 2011 to expand borrower eligibility. Year-to-date, 709,000 loans have been refinanced through HARP, already far exceeding last year's total of about 400,000.