Tag Archives: FHFA

Sometimes, to bring attention to what one considers to be an unjust law or policy, an act of rebellion occurs. In Ohio, three current but underwater borrowers have decided to go on a mortgage strike as an act of civil disobedience against FHFA's stance on principal reduction and the lack of help to address underwater mortgages. Rather than paying their mortgage servicer, the three Ohio homeowners will pay their principal and interest to an attorney who will hold their payments in an escrow account.

In the second quarter of 2012, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac completed more than 129,007 foreclosure prevention actions, raising the year-to-date total to 275,106, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which is the GSEs conservator and regulator, reported Wednesday. The second quarter total is a decrease from the first quarter of 2012, when the GSEs completed 146,099 foreclosure prevention actions. Since 2008, the start of the conservatorship, the GSEs have completed nearly 2.4 million foreclosure prevention actions, 1.2 million of which included permanent loan mods.

Homes with mortgages owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac gained in prices both monthly and yearly in July, according to the FHFA monthly House Price Index (HPI). In July, prices rose 0.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from June and rose 3.7 percent from July 2011. The index currently sits 16.4 below its April 2007 peak.

As of the third quarter of 2011, more than 300 sellers and/or servicers (counterparties) were placed in the high-risk category by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to a report from the FHFA Office of Inspector General. In addition, the report stated the GSEs ended business relationships with more than 40 servicers/sellers on their high-risk watch lists since 2007.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) plans to change the guarantee fees (g-fees) the GSEs charge on single-family mortgages. Starting in 2013, g-fees will be higher in some states than others, according to a notice sent to the Federal Register. Currently, g-fees are the same throughout the country. However, the FHFA has noticed ""a wide variation among states in the costs that the Enterprises incur from mortgage defaults,"" according to its notice to the Federal Register.

As part of its High Touch Servicing Program, Fannie Mae entered a deal with Bank of America in July 2011 to purchase mortgage servicing rights (MSR) for about 384,000 high-risk loans the GSE guaranteed. The Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of Inspector General (FHFA-OIG) recently reviewed the deal and the program in general.

Calculations for REO discounts can differ on extreme levels. In a mortgage market note from FHFA, the agency explained common reasons behind the variations. FHFA stated there are at least six reasons to explain why REO discounts vary so greatly. The first three are the condition effect, characteristics effect, and market effect. Those explanations are directly related to the property value of houses.

On the heels of the Federal Housing Finance Agency's announcement of its revised representation and warranty guidelines, comes news that Freddie Mac will be increasing its repurchase claims in the near future. The revised rep and warranty guidelines were designed to provide more clarity in the market, but in the meantime, the FHFA Office of Inspector General reports Freddie Mac will increase repurchase requests to between $0.

Federal agents arrested 10 defendants who worked at a Rancho Cucamonga, California-based business accused of offering false loan modification programs to homeowners, SIGTARP announced Wednesday. Those taken into custody are among 11 defendants named in a federal indictment over a mortgage fraud scheme that allegedly cost distressed homeowners more than $7 million.

The housing market is seeing signs of recovery, and this recovery may be bolstered by the new representation and warranty framework the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced Tuesday, according to Fitch. Relying on signing offers and home tours as a future indicator of home sales, Redfin, a technology-driven real estate broker, predicts the market improvement seen this summer will continue into the fall.