Fannie and Freddie boast about their downpayment assistance and consumer education programs, key initiatives to help first-time homebuyers in a high-interest-rate, low-supply market.
High delinquency rates in the GSEs’ senior housing portfolios suggest that the sector still hasn’t recovered from the panic created by the pandemic. High interest rates and inflation haven’t helped.
The Financial Stability Oversight Council last week endorsed FHFA’s years-long request for prudential regulatory authority over nonbank mortgage servicers.
A coalition of trade groups has told FHFA that they can’t accurately compare new credit scores with old ones unless they have data going back prior to the financial crisis.
FHFA and the Mortgage Bankers Association have asked legislators to exempt Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from new laws governing the use of automated underwriting systems and other artificial intelligence tools.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency last week joined the OCC, FDIC and NCUA in reproposing a rule that will prohibit incentive-based compensation agreements.
Even though Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac maintained healthy profits in a tough market in the first quarter, their capital shortfalls under the ERCF remained absurdly high. (Includes data table.)
Although some non-agency players may see Freddie’s plan to purchase closed-end seconds as competition, many lenders see a way to create more liquidity in the sector.
Will allowing lenders to omit one of the three credit scores from the underwriting process reduce costs for borrowers or ensure that some unqualified borrowers inadvertently get a loan they can’t afford?