Citing the urgent need to take “immediate action to prevent more foreclosures,” a group of more than two dozen House lawmakers is urging President Obama to appoint a new permanent Federal Housing Finance Agency director via a recess appointment. In a letter sent to the president last week, 28 California Democrats said the FHFA under the stewardship of Acting Director Edward DeMarco has “consistently and erroneously interpreted its mandate” as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s regulator “far too narrowly” and failed to help struggling California homeowners. “As the fiduciary of government-backed...

The Securities and Exchange Commission has adopted a modified policy that will require defendants in settlement agreements to admit to wrongdoing if they have already pled guilty in parallel criminal cases. “Following a review by senior enforcement staff that began this spring and separate discussions with the commissioners over the last several months, last week we modified our settlement language for cases involving criminal convictions where a defendant has admitted violations of the criminal law,” said SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami.The new policy does not require admissions...

Reducing monthly payments to a sustainable level for distressed borrowers who are significantly underwater on their mortgages may require principal reductions, in addition to interest rate concessions and loan term extensions, but pursuing such a policy is not without significant drawbacks, according to a Federal Reserve analysis. In a white paper sent to the banking committees on Capitol Hill last week, the Fed dove into the controversial issue of whether Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be taking more aggressive steps like principal reduction to help distressed borrowers and shore up...

Despite some commendable improvements in its monitoring of the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks, the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s failure to establish policies, systems and documentation standards threatens to undermine the FHFA’s oversight of troubled FHLBanks, according to a new report by the FHFA’s overseer.The FHFA Office of Inspector General’s first report of 2012 picks right up where it left off last year in the OIG’s persistent criticism of the FHFA’s oversight of the GSEs.Since 2008, four FHLBanks – Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Seattle – have faced “significant financial and operational difficulties,” primarily due to their investments in high-risk mortgage-backed securities. In 2009 and 2010, the four Banks posted losses of nearly $2.0 billion on non-agency MBS investments, the FHFA-OIG noted.

The Federal Reserve is calling for the design of a large-scale rental program of government-owned foreclosed properties as the best bet to moderate the inflow of unsold homes even as the Federal Housing Finance Agency shapes the eagerly awaited government REO reduction initiative.The Fed white paper, disseminated among the leaders of the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committees last week, recommends that the GSEs work to convert foreclosed properties into rental housing.The paper states that a government-facilitated REO-to-rental program could take many forms.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is pondering a proposed principal-paydown plan to assist underwater homeowners holding Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac mortgages who have filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection.The plan – based on a proposal pitched to the FHFA in November by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-CA, and the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys – would lower a borrower’s mortgage payments under a five-year bankruptcy repayment schedule.An FHFA spokesman confirmed to Inside The GSEs this week that “the NACBA proposal is under discussion” by the Finance Agency but offered no additional details.

Congress’ 11th hour decision at the end of last year to fund a temporary tax cut with a decade-long hike in the guarantee fees that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac charge to offset potential losses from bad loans will likely prolong the intended wind down of the GSEs, making it much harder to untangle the government from the mortgage market, say experts.Late last month, the Federal Housing Finance Agency directed Fannie and Freddie to increase g-fees on new mortgage products by 10 basis points starting April 1.The FHFA’s directive to the GSEs implements the Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011, passed by the House and Senate and signed by President Obama on Dec. 23. The legislation mandates that Fannie and Freddie raise their single-family guarantee fees by “not less than” 10 bps. The provision is scheduled to sunset in 2021.

Demands to repurchase poorly performing mortgages have resulted in a spike in the number of mortgage fraud-related Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) filed by banks in 2011, according to the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. In its 2011 annual report, FinCEN said increased buyback demands by investors have forced large mortgage lenders to conduct additional reviews of loans they originated, resulting in higher SARs filings last year. A review of SAR filings in the first quarter of 2011 found that the number of mortgage fraud reports rose to 25,485, up 31 percent from...

It started last week with an unsolicited white paper outlining “a framework for thinking about certain issues and tradeoffs that policymakers might consider” and blossomed into a coordinated assault by the Federal Reserve on the housing slump that won’t go away. Having purchased over $1 trillion in mortgage securities in an effort to drive mortgage interest rates to all-time lows, the Fed appears to be using its speechmaking and paper-writing powers to try to get the rest of Washington moving on housing. In addition to the policy paper, Fed officials in the past week have made three speeches on...

A growing consensus is emerging among legal experts that someone will challenge in court President Obama’s contentious recess appointment of Richard Cordray as the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But a final outcome could take years and have no impact on the agency’s actions while the case is unfolding. “These appointments establish a dangerous precedent that threatens the confirmation process and undermines the system of checks and balances embedded in the Constitution,” a number of House Republicans said in a letter they fired off to the president after he made his...