A push is underway by the Treasury Department and certain members of Congress to make Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loan modification efforts a model for the rest of the industry – perhaps more because of their position in the industry than the level of success they’ve had on this front so far. Community advocates aren’t very impressed to date with what the GSEs have done, but a...
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Some Federal Home Loan Bank officials are privately steaming at the treatment the Banks are getting at the hands of federal policymakers in Washington, particularly from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.Early in October, the FDIC announced a capital restoration plan for the institutions it regulates that will charge banks and thrifts higher premiums for deposit insurance if they make heavy...
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Lawmakers on Capitol Hill plan to grill the last two CEOs at both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the deterioration of their companies, their firms’ takeover by the federal government, and their role in the ongoing financial crisis. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, recently directed the new CEOs at Fannie and Freddie to provide a...
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It took a while to get the GSE jumbo loan business up and running, and to the extent that it is, Fannie Mae laid claim to nearly all of it in the third quarter. GSE jumbo production reached a high of $8.26 billion through Sept. 8, and Fannie pooled $7.31 billion of it – about 88.4 percent of the GSE market, according to the Inside...
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If you believe all the recent speeches and statements for the record, you’d think Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are bending over backwards to bring added support to the mortgage market. But if you look at what they’re actually doing, you’ll see another story. For instance, last week, Freddie CEO David Moffett told attendees at the Mortgage Bankers Association that, “Providing more...
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Federal policymakers will prepare in the coming months to plot the post-conservatorship futures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And some regulators are suggesting close attention be paid to the performance of GSE credit default swaps, which might provide some information and market discipline that could enhance the solvency regulation of the two GSEs. But this is more than just an academic issue...
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The Federal Housing Finance Agency officially absorbed the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, the Federal Housing Finance Board, and the GSE mission team of the Department of Housing and Urban Development this week. At the same time, the FHFA also made four key staff appointments, perhaps the most significant of which was the naming of Stephen Cross, previously the Finance Board’s...
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If the Dow Jones Industrial Average grew as consistently as the debt issuance of the Federal Home Loan Banks, a lot more people across the globe would get a lot more sleep. The latest analysis by Inside The GSEs of quarterly discount note issuance data from the FHLBank Office of Finance reveals the Banks’ discount note issuance has blown by... [Includes one chart]
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FHLB Advances Reach $1 Trillion, Likely to Suffer from Consolidation:FHLBank advances have now exceeded the record $1 trillion mark, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director James... FHLBanks are Finding More Member Interest from Insurers: The Federal Home Loan Banks are finding themselves a desired port of call these days by insurance companies eager to...
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