Government

As part of its efforts to expand credit access to more borrowers, the Federal Housing Administration has introduced its "Blueprint for Access," which includes a new counseling program for borrowers using FHA-insured financing. The plan has its critics, including the American Enterprise Institute's Edward Pinto, who argues that FHA "has not stood for sustainable homeownership for at least five decades."

Now that Director Mel Watt's administration is in full swing, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has released its new strategic plan for the conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In its outline, FHFA focused on three tenets going forward for the GSEs: maintain foreclosure prevention activities, reduce taxpayer risk, and build a new, single-family securitization infrastructure.

After staying quiet for months following his swearing-in as head of the agency, Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Mel Watt took the stage at the Brookings Institution this week to outline his own plans for the GSEs. Like FHFA's original Strategic Plan for Enterprise Conservatorships, the newly unveiled plan is built on three blocks: maintain, reduce, and build. However, Watt's revised plan suggests a shift in focus toward broadening credit access.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released its Quarterly Performance Report for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, recording continued improvements as the enterprises see more post-crash business. The Federal Home Loan Bank system had positive earnings as well, noting $2.5 billion of earnings in 2013.

A recently unveiled plan to phase out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and overhaul the secondary mortgage market may have hit another snag, with six key senators reportedly deciding not to give their support. According to Bloomberg, six members of the Senate Banking Committee—all Democrats—have cited concerns that plans in the Johnson-Crapo proposal for finance reform "seemed unworkable."

Releasing their earnings reports simultaneously, Fannie and Freddie reported first-quarter profits of $5.3 billion and $4.0 billion, respectively—a major step back from incomes reported last year but still a fair amount for what was a slow period for the housing market. Both enterprises have reported profits each quarter for more than two years straight.

A top official for the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is looking at a felony charge for allegedly threatening the agency's former acting director, Edward DeMarco. According to a case summary from the District of Columbia Courts website, Richard Hornsby, FHFA's COO, was charged in late April with "[threatening] to kidnap or injure a person," resulting in an order for him to stay away from DeMarco.

Per a settlement announced with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), First Horizon National Corporation has agreed to pay a combined $110 million to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to resolve alleged violations of securities laws connected to private-label securities purchased by the GSEs from 2005–2007. The settlement is the 14th of its kind, bringing the agency closer to closing the book on 18 suits filed in 2011.

Employers across the country added 288,000 jobs to their payrolls in April, bringing the unemployment rate down to a new post-crash low. According to the latest report from the Labor Department, the rate of unemployment last month fell to 6.3 percent, down nearly half a percentage point after a flat March. At an estimated 9.8 million, the number of unemployed people was down by 733,000.

According to figures released Thursday by the Commerce Department, total construction spending in March bumped up 0.2 percent to an estimated adjusted annual rate of $942.5 billion. Compared to a year prior, March spending was up 8.4 percent. In the private sector, construction spending was put at an estimated rate of $679.6 billion, with residential projects accounting for $369.8 billion of that total.