Housing-finance reform won’t happen in the near future and the government-sponsored enterprises are busy expanding their footprint instead of reducing it, according to lawmakers voicing concerns during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing this week.

A key Treasury Department official said regulatory reform could help rejuvenate the non-agency MBS market but offered little guidance on the future prospects for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt said one of the challenges of being in a decade-long conservatorship is the inability to make strategic decisions on everyday operations. And it doesn’t look like that problem will be solved anytime soon. During a Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs hearing this week, he said the decision to relocate Fannie Mae’s headquarters is an example of trying to make decisions for the GSEs amid an uncertain future. “Without looking somewhat down the road, FHFA and the enterprises would both lose their momentum and jeopardize day-to-day success.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, said he plans to examine media reports alleging that Fannie Mae violated restrictions by participating in lobbying efforts. Fannie Mae denied the claims. Last week, Fannie’s general counsel, Brian Brooks, was accused of meeting with members of the executive branch to discuss housing-finance reform. Hensarling said if the report that was published in Bloomberg is accurate, high-ranking Fannie employees have been intentionally violating their government prohibition on lobbying through a series of “secret” meetings to remove the GSE from conservatorship. “If true, this violation is more than an outrage, it is a direct affront on taxpayers and the current structure of the federally-backed conservatorship that has allowed Fannie Mae to operate for the last decade,” said Hensarling.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency seeks oversight of counterparties that provide services to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks, according to its 2017 annual report to Congress published this week. In addition to reporting examination activity, the FHFA offers legislative recommendations. The agency discussed the regulated entities’ heavy involvement with third parties who provide “critical services” supporting the secondary mortgage market. The agency said this includes nonbank mortgage servicers for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And while oversight of these counterparties is important to the safety and soundness of the GSEs, the FHFA argued that oversight can only happen now through contractual provisions.

Housing-finance reform may want to take some cues from the mortgage-finance system in Denmark, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in a new report comparing and contrasting the two systems. In fact, the creditor-friendliness of the Danish system means that relatively more price risk is borne by the homeowner. One of the bases for NY Fed’s recommendation is that, unlike in the U.S., the Danish system remained stable and solvent during the 2007-2009 financial crisis. And, despite falling home prices, the Danish system didn’t require government intervention or funding. The authors chose that system because they said it’s most similar to the model in the U.S.

Many industry observers are bracing for significant change in the roles of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as Congress has failed again to tackle the problem. But some analysts believe the Trump administration will steer away from policy changes that would rile major business constituencies and slow down a major component of the economy.

Tax reform legislation enacted near the end of 2017 will likely lead to lower home prices and provide homeowners with more money to spend on housing, according to a study by Hal Martin, a policy economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

The prospects of a legislative overhaul of the housing-finance system this year have diminished considerably, but many have turned to deciphering possible moves by the Trump administration.

Minority borrowers applying for an FHA or VA first-lien purchase mortgage were more likely to be denied than comparable white borrowers, according to an Inside FHA/VA Lending analysis of 2017 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. This finding was no surprise because the denial rates reflected the same historical trends for white and minority borrowers over the years. Approximately 727,865 FHA/VA loans went to white borrowers last year. Of the 978,981 government-insured loan applications submitted by white borrowers, 9.07 percent were denied. Of the 231,108 black borrowers who applied for a government-backed home loan, lenders rejected 14.57 percent. Out of the 285,707 FHA/VA loan applications submitted by Hispanics, lenders denied 11.42 percent. Asian borrowers submitted the least number of FHA/VA loan applications, 44,739. Lenders denied 11.36 percent. For FHA, the ... [Chart]