Tag Archives: FHFA

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) will be trying to get the more than 20,000 New Jersey residents still eligible to sign up for the Home Affordable Refinance Program at their fifth outreach event to be held in Newark on March 4.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is still refinancing plenty of loans through Home Affordable Refinance Program ‒‒ in fact more HARP refinances were done in December than in any other month of 2014 ‒‒ but HARP refinances are significantly down from a year ago, even if FHFA believes it has many more potential customers out there.

The Collingwood Group, a business advisory firm based in Washington, D.C., announced Tuesday that veteran housing finance policy expert Bonnie McCloskey has joined the company as VP.

FHFA, which is suing on behalf of the RMBS pools' trustees, claims that Morgan Stanley committed a breach of contract by failing to buy back the poor performing loans, which were pooled into securities and sold to Freddie Mac in 2007, according to reports.

In a meeting with reporters on Wednesday, Mel Watt, former U.S. representative and chief of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) since December 2013, discussed a number of key issues facing the GSEs and the agency, touching on topics ranging from recently introduced low down payment programs to the often debated subject of principal reduction for struggling homeowners.

The proposed requirements include minimums for net worth, capital ratio, and liquidity criteria that must be met by servicers and sellers to do business with the GSEs.

Watt was testifying before Congress for the second time since becoming director of FHFA a year ago, this time to give an update on the government's conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

In its latest National Mortgage Risk Index (NMRI), the American Enterprise Institute's (AEI) International Center on Housing Risk estimated that 11.84 percent of agency purchase loans would be at risk of default should the economy see another crisis in the near future.

Based on home sales price information from mortgages sold to and guaranteed by the GSEs, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) reported that its House Price Index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.8 percent month-over-month in November.

Monthly data released by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) shows Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together reported 134,582 refinances in November 2014, down from nearly 139,000 in October. As overall refinancing fell, so too did the number of mortgages refinanced under the Obama administration's Home Affordable Refinance Program.