Despite the sound and fury from publicly peeved House Democrats directed at Federal Housing Finance Agency Acting Director Edward DeMarco, including calls for him to step aside, the consensus among industry insiders and those in the know on Capitol Hill is – good luck finding anyone else willing or able to jumpstart the underperforming GSE refinance plan while obeying the FHFA’s restrictive regulatory mandate.
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Any changes that would restrict membership or narrow the Federal Home Loan Banks’ mission should come first from Congress not by administrative fiat, Bank officials told House members this week.FHLBank of Dallas Chairman Lee Gibson testified before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations that explicit Congressional guidance is both necessary and proper before any fundamental alteration of the FHLBank system is imposed.
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The Federal Housing Finance Agency needs to explain why it hired expensive outside counsel instead of dispatching government lawyers in its massive litigation against the nation’s big financial institutions, as well as just how much the agency expects to recoup from the effort, according to a senior Republican congressman.
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As the Federal Housing Finance Agency ponders possible improvements to the government’s Home Affordable Refinance Program, calls from different corners of the industry are growing louder for the FHFA to end fees charged to borrowers who refinance Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages.
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The Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago’s long awaited capital stock conversion plan has received the thumbs up from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, moving the Bank a giant step toward regaining equal footing with its fellow FHLBanks.
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Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issued $177.19 billion in single-family mortgage-backed securities during the third quarter of 2011, a modest 14.3 percent improvement following two straight quarterly declines during the first six months of this year.The recent July-September cycle represented one of the weakest quarters historically for GSE MBS production since the financial markets crashed at the end of 2008.
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The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s announcement last month that it is considering increased risk sharing with mortgage insurers, which could mitigate the negative effect of conforming mortgage guarantee fee increases over the coming years, while the Federal Reserve’s recently unveiled “Operation Twist” is likely to provide a “modest near-term boost to mortgage markets,” according to a report by Moody’s Investors Service.
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The Federal Housing Finance Agency knew or should have known about improper foreclosure practices involving Fannie Mae affiliated law firms long before the Finance Agency began a review, according to the regulator’s official watchdog.The FHFA Office of Inspector General’s latest audit found that the FHFA did not investigate complaints about Fannie’s Retained Attorney Network until August 2010 in the wake of negative news reports alleging that RAN attorneys had engaged in inappropriate foreclosure practices, such as routinely filing false documents in court proceedings and “robo-signing.”
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The ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is calling on the Federal Housing Finance Agency to “give serious consideration” to shuttering Fannie Mae’s Retained Attorney Network, but not before answering questions and providing documents about the FHFA’s oversight of the program.
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