A bill to cap the salaries of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac CEOs at $600,000 is expected to become law, but has been rescheduled for vote in the House sometime during the week of Nov. 16. The budget vote last week, coupled with the debate over the Export-Import Bank and election of a new House Speaker, resulted in the salary cap legislation being postponed for a floor vote at a later date this month, said Rep. Ed Royce, R-CA. Royce introduced the “Equity in Government Compensation Act” back in May. It would suspend the $4 million compensation packages for Fannie’s Timothy Mayapoulos and Freddie’s Donald Layton that were approved early this year after...

Freddie Mac’s $475 million net loss in the third quarter of 2015 – its first in four years – underscores the need to rebuild capital reserves at the two government-sponsored enterprises and to plan for their emergence from conservatorship, according to some mortgage groups and housing advocates. In a joint letter, the Community Home Lenders Association and the Community Mortgage Lenders of America, both of which represent small independent mortgage lenders, urged President Obama to support recommended revisions to a sweep agreement that prohibits the GSEs from rebuilding capital and to free them from conservatorship. Freddie’s third-quarter loss was...

A 10 basis point surcharge on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guaranty fees that went into effect in 2012 could end up being extended for another five years as lawmakers on Capitol Hill look for money to back the federal government’s Highway Trust Fund. The 10 percent increase in the government-sponsored enterprises’ g-fees was designed to pay for an extension of a federal payroll tax cut. It is currently scheduled to run to 2021, generating $35.7 billion in revenue, according to the Congressional Budget Office. With transportation funding set to expire Oct. 29, the House this week approved...

The Department of Veterans Affairs and the FHA have issued guidelines concerning the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure (TRID) rule as it relates to VA- and FHA-backed mortgages. The new TRID rule covers loan applications received on or after Oct. 3, 2015. It replaced Truth-in-Lending-Act disclosures and the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s closing (HUD-1) settlement statement. The rule requires that all covered loans be closed using the new closing disclosure. The VA has announced new closing-disclosure guidelines and a new mandatory method for the stacking order of loan files selected for full-loan review. According to the VA, all files selected for full review on or after Oct. 3 may include the HUD-1 statement. The agency is aware that loans will be requested that have the HUD-1 closing document, and that it will perform the full file review with the ...

Although most analysts and industry observers agree that the FHA cut in mortgage insurance premiums, effective in January, has resulted in stronger purchase volumes and credit availability, opinions vary as to whether another reduction is on the way. The FY 2014 independent actuarial audit of the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund projected FHA’s total loan production in fiscal 2015 at $124 billion. With the FHA pricing adjustment, production is now expected to increase by 60 percent, with total production estimated at $200 billion by the end of the fiscal year, said Brian Chappelle, an industry consultant. As program fundamentals trend upward, Chappelle is...

There is widespread agreement that any substantive legislative remedy for the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac won’t begin to happen until after the 2016 elections – if then – but lawmakers on Capitol Hill may manage to push through some minor adjustments in this Congress. The most likely legislation to pass would have an impact on just two individuals, the CEOs of Fannie and Freddie, who received sizable pay hikes early this year. In the Senate, S. 2036, the Equity in Government Compensation Act of 2015 would require the Federal Housing Finance Agency to suspend those compensation packages and roll them back to $600,000, their previous level. The bill was co-sponsored...

As rumors ran rampant over the past few weeks about the White House possibly looking to end GSE conservatorship before a new administration takes reign, Treasury and White House officials said this week there are no plans in the works to recapitalize and release the GSEs. “None of us should be misled by the increasingly noisy chorus of the advocates of recap and release,” said Michael Stegman, the White House’s senior policy director for housing, speaking at this week’s annual Mortgage Bankers Association conference. He added that doing so would “turn back the clock on the run-up to the crisis,” which he said would be “bad judgment and poor stewardship of taxpayer’s interest.”

Earlier this month, the House of Representatives voted 303-121 in favor of H.R. 3192, The Homebuyers Assistance Act. The legislation would provide the mortgage industry with a regulatory and legal safe harbor until Feb. 1, 2016, for mortgages originated in good faith under the CFPB’s Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure rule, otherwise known as TRID. The rule, designed to streamline the mortgage disclosures under the two laws, took effect Oct. 3, 2015, after nearly two years of notice from the CFPB. “The CFPB and House Republicans agree that a transitional period for TRID compliance which enables lenders to test their systems and ensures there is no large-scale disruption to mortgage lending is necessary,” said Rep. ...

The VA loan is a great option for veterans and servicemembers looking to purchase a new home. However, did you know it could also be paired with other home-financing programs to give the borrower a bigger bang for the buck? For instance, many real estate brokers and mortgage lenders are unaware that the VA loan can be used with certain products offered through state housing finance agencies to provide greater benefits to veterans and members of the military. The Colorado Housing and Finance Authority (CHFA) offers a tax credit program that allows VA borrowers to claim a percentage of the annual mortgage interest paid each year as a federal tax credit on their federal income tax returns. “It is not a tax deduction,” said Chad Patterson, a real estate agent with RE/MAX Traditions in Longmont, CO. “This can be a huge asset to the ...

Wall Street remains concerned about the level of standardization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac operations in a single-security environment where investors would be expected to treat them as completely interchangeable. The Structured Finance Industry Group this week reiterated its concern about the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s plan to avoid “complete alignment” of the two government-sponsored enterprises’ operations. In a May 2015 update on the single security, the FHFA said it would carefully assess business decisions that could lead to different prepayment speeds, but that buy-out and removal policies at the two GSEs are essentially the same. That isn’t...