Last week, the Senate passed legislation that would extend to state-licensed mortgage companies – and the state regulatory agencies that oversee them – the same kind of protections against waivers of privilege for information provided to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that was previously extended to federal agencies that supervise depository mortgage lenders. The measure, H.R. 5062, the Examination and Supervisory Privilege Parity Act of 2014, would require the CFPB to coordinate its supervisory activities with state agencies that license, supervise or examine those who offer consumer financial products or services. Currently under the Dodd-Frank Act, the bureau is only required to coordinate with federal and state banking regulators. The legislation also would provide...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were both active this week with multifamily MBS transactions, but they’ll have to double-time it if they plan to match last year’s levels. The odds are against them. Fannie’s multifamily new business volume came to $13.8 billion through August 2014, compared with $20.4 billion the year before. The government-sponsored enterprise would have to crank out another $15 billion in the last four months of 2014 to match the 2013 total of $28.8 billion. For rival Freddie, multifamily new business activity totaled...

The ongoing uncertainty about the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is weighing on the mortgage industry and it’s only going to get worse with time, said the former head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency this week. Edward DeMarco, now a senior fellow in residence for the Milken Institute’s Center for Financial Markets, warned that with the government in effective control of the mortgage market, the risk grows of capital allocation and pricing decisions made through the prism of political calculation rather than due to sound, market driven principle.

The Senate’s housing finance reform bill would save the government some $60 billion over 10 years according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, but don’t hold your breath waiting for the windfall, say critics. Earlier this month, the CBO issued its estimate, which concluded that replacing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with a new securitization program that couples a first-loss position for private capital with back-end government insurance could reduce “direct spending” by $60 billion over the 2015-2024 period.

The CFPB would have a handful of new oversight responsibilities for the credit-reporting sector under a discussion draft of possible legislation entitled the “Fair Credit Reporting Improvement Act of 2014,” circulated last week by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA, the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee. Among the draft’s provisions is a directive for the bureau to set standards for validating the accuracy and predictive value of credit score algorithms, formulas, models, programs, and mechanisms…

In what looks like an example of a minority party member of Congress trying to outflank the majority party, Rep. Carol Maloney, D-NY, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, wrote CFPB Director Richard Cordray last week and urged the agency take specific steps to address certain checking account overdraft practices. Some of her suggestions are included in legislation she introduced last year that has not been taken up by committee. Maloney’s recommendations come despite indications that most bank customers overall pay little or nothing for their monthly banking services. Referencing a related study issued by the bureau in July, Maloney said the agency’s report provides “indisputable evidence” that consumers who have not opted in to overdraft protection are ...

Industry Tries to Rustle Up Support for QM Points-and-Fees Legislation. The Mortgage Action Alliance, the grassroots advocacy group of the Mortgage Bankers Association, recently issued a “call to action” to its members to get on the telephone and call their Senators and urge them to pass legislation that would make key changes to the way points and fees are calculated under the qualified mortgage definition in the CFPB’s ability-to-repay rule. S. 1577, the Mortgage Choice Act of 2013, introduced last year by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WV, exempts any affiliated title charges and escrow charges for taxes and insurance from the QM cap on points and fees. Manchin’s bill is a legislative companion to H.R. 3211, the Mortgage Choice Act, which ...

Six years after the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the former regulator of the government-sponsored enterprises noted that the housing finance system has made “significant progress.” But even as critical structural changes are underway, comprehensive improvement is still several years out. In a policy paper issued last week, Edward DeMarco – new senior fellow-in-residence for the Milken Institute’s Center for Financial Markets – said that house prices, as measured by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, have recovered more than 50 percent since their decline in 2007. “While the damage from the housing crisis has been substantial, we are finally seeing...

S. 1217, the Housing Finance Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act of 2014, would decrease federal deficits by a total of $58 billion from 2015 to 2024, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs approved the legislation to reform the government-sponsored enterprises earlier this year but the full Senate has yet to consider the bill and there is little support for the legislation in the House.

The FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund account balances fell by $0.5 billion during the second quarter of 2014 to $45.3 billion due to higher claim payments and property expenses. Observers, nonetheless, remain optimistic the fund will return to full stability in 2015 with no further change in the mortgage insurance premium charged to borrowers. The MMIF’s total balances peaked at $48.4 billion in the third quarter of 2013 and then slipped gradually over the last three quarters, according to data in the FHA’s latest report to Congress regarding the financial health of the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. Total revenues from premium collections, property sale, and note sale proceeds were $4.3 billion, while $5.1 billion was paid to cover claims and property expenses in the second quarter. This resulted in a negative$821 million cash flow in the quarter, the smallest outflow since ...