Tag Archives: Fannie Mae

MGIC Investment Corporation is on its way to resolving stipulations from Freddie Mac in order to continue issuing insurance.

With gaffes and down polls embroiling his campaign, Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney unveiled a housing white paper on Friday to reposition his message and salvage his campaign. The document, titled ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├àÔÇ£Securing the American Dream and the Future of Housing,├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├é┬Ø prescribes several conservative policy must-haves. For starters, there├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós much ado about the return of private capital to the secondary mortgage market and devolution for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Oh, and jobs. Twelve million to be exact.

Prospect Mortgage has been appointed as a new financing partner for Fannie Mae, as the government-sponsored enterprise takes steps to expand its HomePath Mortgage program. Through the collaboration with Fannie, Prospect will now be able to extend funding to borrowers who qualify for the mortgage loan initiative.

As part of its High Touch Servicing Program, Fannie Mae entered a deal with Bank of America in July 2011 to purchase mortgage servicing rights for about 384,000 high-risk loans the GSE guaranteed. The Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of Inspector General recently reviewed the deal and the program in general. The idea behind Fannie Mae's High Touch Servicing program is to purchase the servicing rights for portfolios of high-risk loans it guarantees and transfer them to specialty servicers to mitigate losses.

A decline in interest by homebuyers shaved just 0.2 percent off mortgage applications last week, with refinance activity climbing. The Mortgage Bankers Association, which unveils the figures in a weekly survey, found application volume upward-bound by 24 percent on a seasonally unadjusted basis. Refinance applications started to swell last week. The Refinance Index went up 1 percent, with the refinance share of mortgage activity cresting at 81 percent of total applications, up from 80 percent last week.

Economic growth isn't looking good for the rest of the year, according to Fannie Mae's Economic & Strategic Research Group. According to the GSE's most recent Economic Outlook report, downside risks such as the European debt crisis, the fast-approaching fiscal cliff, and the recent slowdown in hiring have created a drag on the second quarter's modest economic growth. Fannie Mae is setting growth expectations to 1.8 percent, a slight increase from Q2, but under Q1's projected 2.0 percent pace.

Rep. John Campbell introduced to Congress a piece of legislation designed to keep local governments from using eminent domain to seize homes with underwater mortgages. Titled ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├àÔÇ£The Defending American Taxpayers from Abusive Government Takings Act,├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├é┬Ø the bill would prohibit Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, and the Veterans Administration from purchasing or guaranteeing loans originating in counties where a municipality has seized a mortgage loan through eminent domain in the last decade.

On the heels of the Federal Housing Finance Agency├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós announcement of its revised representation and warranty guidelines comes news that Freddie Mac will be increasing its repurchase claims in the near future. The revised rep and warranty guidelines were designed to provide more clarity in the market, but in the meantime, the FHFA Office of Inspector General reports Freddie Mac will increase repurchase requests to between $0.8 billion and $1.2 billion this year and between $2.2 billion and $3.4 billion overall.

Before the Five Star Conference went into full swing last week, one firm, Valuation Vision, announced the participation of one of its members at one of the industry event├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔÇ×┬ós noteworthy academic courses. The Oceanside, California-based valuation products company, a subsidiary of The Kirchmeyer Group, revealed that Bill Mohler, director of product development, would join other distinguished panelists in the class titled ├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├àÔÇ£Opposing Values: BPO vs. Appraisals vs. Desktops vs. AVMs.├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├é┬Ø

The housing market is seeing signs of recovery, and this recovery may be bolstered by the new representation and warranty framework the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced Tuesday, according to Fitch. Relying on signing offers and home tours as a future indicator of home sales, Redfin, a technology-driven real estate broker, predicts the market improvement seen this summer will continue into the fall. Offers fell 4 percent in August.