Freddie Mac’s government conservator is stepping up to shut down a potentially costly lawsuit filed against the GSE by the Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp. both by legal and by extra-legal means. Last month, the Federal Housing Finance Agency told a Wisconsin federal court that it lacks jurisdiction over the pool insurance suit the mortgage insurer filed against Freddie. Given that the suit would impede FHFA in its capacity as the GSE’s conservator, the court should dismiss MGIC’s suit, according to court papers filed by the Finance Agency on July 20.

Freddie Mac last week said it will tweak its eligibility requirements to be more in line with Fannie Mae and expand the pool of its borrowers eligible to refinance through the recently revised Home Affordable Refinance Program. Under Freddie’s Relief Refinance Mortgage Program – which includes HARP – the requirements for refinancing will be aligned for mortgages with loan-to-value ratios that are equal to or less than 80 percent. Fannie’s HARP refi program currently makes no distinction between loans that are above or below 80 LTV, while Freddie draws a line in a number of areas for borrowers going through HARP at their existing servicer.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac each sold significantly more units of real estate-owned properties than the two GSEs took during the second quarter of 2012, a factor at least one of the companies says helped push it into the black during the April to June earnings period. Fannie reported its total inventory of REOs as of June 30, 2012, was 109,266 compared to 114,157 on March 31, selling nearly 5,000 more foreclosed homes than the GSE acquired. "Sales prices on disposition of our REO properties improved in the second quarter of 2012 as a result of strong demand,” explained Fannie in its second-quarter earnings report. “We received new proceeds from our REO sales equal to 59 percent of the loans’ unpaid principal balance in the second quarter of 2012, compared with 56 percent in the first quarter of 2012 and 54 percent in the second quarter of 2011.”

The mortgage credit-enhancement business has been no place to be the past few years, but many observers think the market has touched bottom and is starting to come back. After hemorrhaging losses since 2008, the two biggest mortgage credit-enhancement providers – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – reported positive net income on their single-family guaranty businesses during the second quarter. The private mortgage insurance industry hasn’t gotten there yet. Fannie and Freddie reported...[Includes two data charts]

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac this week both celebrated large second-quarter profits that easily exceeded their installment payments to the U.S. Treasury as the price of government conservatorship, but buried in their earnings report was the hard truth lenders know too well: contentious buyback demands showed no sign of letting up. “Our expectation [is] that the amount of our outstanding repurchase requests to seller/servicers will remain high and that we may be unable to recover on all outstanding loan repurchase obligations resulting from seller/servicers’ breaches of contractual obligations,” Fannie said. As of the end of June, the two government-sponsored enterprises had...[Includes one data chart]

Hardball conditions imposed by Freddie Mac in order to permit lenders to continue selling loans insured by Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp., over the objections of state regulators, has cast a cloud over MGIC’s already uncertain prospects. Fannie Mae has approved a new MGIC insurance entity that also has the backing of the insurance company’s home state regulator, the Office of the Commissioner of Wisconsin. But MGIC warned investors last week that Freddie’s Aug. 1 approval of the new unit is conditional and could be withdrawn at any time and ends Dec. 31, 2012. Freddie says it can and will pull...

Despite intense lobbying and political pressure from the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced this week it will hold fast to its original conclusion and not agree to Treasury Department requests to allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to offer principal forgiveness modifications. Despite the incentives offered by Treasury to pay the government-sponsored enterprises to write down principal under the Home Affordable Modification Program using Troubled Asset Relief Program funds, FHFA Acting Director Edward DeMarco concluded the benefits of implementing HAMP’s Principal Reduction Alternative did not outweigh the risks to the taxpayer-backed GSEs. “Given our multiple responsibilities to conserve the assets of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, maximize assistance to homeowners to avoid foreclosures, and minimize the expense of such assistance to taxpayers, FHFA concluded...

In a letter to Congressional leaders, the FHFA shed a little more light on its efforts to address GSE buybacks. Fannie and Freddie are developing...

There appear to be no immediate plans to move the GSEs beyond conservatorship status but news this week that the Federal Housing Finance Agency is actively investigating the possibilities of receivership may be designed to attract the attention of thus far indifferent policymakers and snap official Washington into action, say industry experts. The FHFA this week confirmed that it has commissioned the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers to create contingency plans for taking Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks into receivership. A Finance Agency spokesman said the hiring of PwC, which was not officially announced, is just one of a number of “ordinary regulatory activities” that the FHFA is authorized and obligated to pursue under the authority granted the agency by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008.