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Inside The GSEs

September 12, 2007

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Why Aren’t Fannie, Freddie Doing More?

Consumer and housing advocacy groups are disappointed that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aren’t doing more to help subprime borrowers who are struggling to meet their mortgage obligations or have already defaulted. “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aren’t doing enough... Read More

FHLBs & Advances: Suddenly Relevant

Member use of Federal Home Loan Bank advances surged in August, as the credit crunch gives the staid FHLBanks new relevance. The FHLBank Office of Finance recently took the unusual step of releasing some system-wide... [Includes one chart and one graph] Read More

Policymakers Wrangle Over Lifting GSE Caps

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, chairman of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Housing, has been going head-to-head with Bush administration officials over lifting the cap on Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s portfolio, allowing them greater flexibility for... Read More

Raising Portfolio Caps Raises Key Questions

While politicians volley policy arguments for and against the notion of lifting the portfolio caps on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, many industry players have privately debated the real-world marketplace implications. Recently, a number of industry experts and movers... Read More

Frank Rejects Bernanke Proposal on GSE Holdings

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-MA, last week rejected as “astonishingly stupid” Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s suggestion that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dump some of the prime mortgage holdings in their retained portfolios and... Read More

Freddie Cap Won’t be Raised Soon, Analysts Conclude

Some pessimistic Wall Street analysts think it’s unlikely that Freddie Mac will see its temporary portfolio cap lifted by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight before the end of next year. Freddie reported its second quarter results late last... Read More

OFHEO Praises GSEs on Implementing Guidance

Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Director James Lockhart recently praised the two GSEs for what they’ve done so far to implement the recent federal interagency guidance on nontraditional products and subprime mortgage lending. The GSEs will implement... Read More

House Price Indices Show Barest of Upticks

Home prices continue to go nowhere fast. The latest House Price Index published quarterly by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight was 0.1 percent higher in the second quarter of the year than in the first quarter of 2007. “This is below the... Read More

Battered Industry Turns to FHLBanks for Help

At a time when many mortgage players are crashing on the rocks, the housing GSEs are being sought out as a safe harbor in the worst storm in the market’s history. And it’s not just Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that are being called upon; industry players and some... Read More

News In Brief

Finance Board Reappoints Director to FHLBank of Boston: The Federal Housing Finance Board has... GSE Heads to Testify Sept. 20: The chairmen of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were... Freddie’s Net Pounded As Market Woes Continued in 2Q: Echoing some of the larger market trends... Bush Homeowner Plan Light on GSE Role: President Bush’s plan to help struggling... Read More

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