A new Treasury announcement sweetens the deal for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to allow principal forgiveness in loan modifications, but it’s not clear whether the government-sponsored enterprises, and their regulator, will abandon their opposition to writedowns. New changes in the Home Affordable Modification Program raise the maximum incentives for principal reduction from the current range – 6 percent to 18 percent of the amount forgiven – to a range of 21 percent to 63 percent. The Treasury Department said it would, for the first time, pay these incentives to the GSEs if they agree to write down the...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be brought “on budget” by adding the two government-sponsored enterprises’ outstanding obligations to the federal deficit, while also mandating the use of “fair value” accounting for the FHA to take into account risk as well as borrowing costs, under legislation sponsored by a high-ranking House Republican. Last week, the House Budget Committee passed H.R. 3581, the Budget and Accounting Transparency Act of 2012, introduced by Rep. Scott Garrett, R-NJ, as part of a comprehensive package of 10 reform bills by House GOP members who are pushing to enforce spending...

The deadline for the state attorneys general to determine whether they will join the multistate settlement of mortgage foreclosure and servicing practices has been extended from Feb. 3 to Feb. 6. While some AGs have definitively stated whether they are in or not, Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto and others are still seeking more information about the settlement terms. For a settlement that’s taken more than 15 months to negotiate, few are surprised the deadline has been pushed back. If anything, the mere three-day delay is welcome news for observers used to more than a year of back and forth. The new...

A group of six real estate finance trade organizations has called upon the Department of Housing and Urban Development to hold off on implementing a proposed rule on the “discriminatory effects standard” of the Fair Housing Act until the U.S. Supreme Court can weigh in on the issue this spring. The American Bankers Association, American Financial Services Association, Consumer Bankers Association, Consumer Mortgage Coalition, Independent Community Bankers of America and Mortgage Bankers Association asked HUD to postpone its rulemaking process to establish uniform standards for discrimination under the...

Federal banking regulators this week reminded banks and thrifts to pay close attention to how they monitor risks and calculate loss reserves in their home-equity loan business. An interagency supervisory memo sent this week does not change the regulators’ policy on allowance for loan and lease losses for closed-end second mortgages and home-equity lines of credit, but it urges lenders to “monitor all credit quality indicators” relevant to junior liens. Although many observers have raised concerns about the risk of second mortgages, delinquency rates on loans held by banks, thrifts and credit unions have been lower...

The U.S. residential housing market used to provide the lion’s share of business for non-agency asset securitization, but experts at this week’s American Securitization Forum say it will take years for the sorely damaged housing market to recover and the nationalized mortgage finance system to be overhauled. Supply and demand fundamentals in the housing market are severely broken, said Laurie Goodman, senior managing director at Amherst Securities Group. There are some 2.9 million borrowers in foreclosure or more than 12 months delinquent, plus another 400,000 units of real estate-owned properties. With...

Analysts have mixed expectations for residential mortgage servicing in 2012, with some seeing it as a year of foreclosure-prevention reforms and others anticipating a higher level of vigilance in new deals and loan quality. Although issuance of non-agency MBS will be modest again in 2012, new deals will have more comprehensive reviews of originators, more reliable and better-quality loan-level data, and stronger enforcement of breaches of representations and warranties, according to Moody’s Investors Service. New deals will better address legal issues relating to foreclosure challenges. Some of the deals...

Expect the run up to the fall elections to curb any meaningful results in terms of a legislative overhaul of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. However, industry insiders say it’s quite likely that lawmakers will work through the year to tweak various GSE reform proposals for the next Congress to take up in 2013.As Congress resumed this week following the holiday break, members returned to some 14 bills in the House advancing their way through committee – though only a couple are considered “comprehensive” reform legislation. Meanwhile, two bills filed at the end of last year in the Senate got the other chamber of Congress into the GSE reform debate after a long dormancy.

Despite the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s release of a long awaited study justifying its position against the writedown of underwater GSE mortgages, principal-reduction proponents, including House Democrats, appear poised to redouble their efforts to pressure the FHFA to see things their way.This week, the Finance Agency released its analysis of taxpayer losses to explain the FHFA’s policy decision to exclude principal forgiveness as a policy in favor of principal forbearance, the alternative that the GSEs currently apply to their underwater loans.As of June 30, 2011, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had nearly 3 million first-lien mortgages with outstanding balances in which the borrower owed more than the loan on the home was worth.

A trio of real estate finance trade groups is calling upon Congress to leave the GSEs’ guarantee fees alone as lawmakers devise a way to pay for tax cuts for the remainder of 2012.The Mortgage Bankers Association, National Association of Realtors and National Association of Home Builders dispatched a joint letter to House and Senate leaders late this week noting their united opposition “to increasing g-fees for reasons other than minimizing the GSE’s risk exposure.” Late last month, the Federal Housing Finance Agency directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase g-fees on new mortgage products by 10 basis points starting April 1.