Tag Archives: FHFA

On Wednesday the Federal Housing Finance Agency slapped UBS Americas Inc. and several other defendants with a suit in the U.S. district court for the Southern District of New York, claiming the company violated federal law by selling bad residential private-label mortgage-backed securities to GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Aiming to recover losses stemming from a $4.5 billion investment by the GSEs in 16 pools of mortgage-backed securities, the federal agency alleges in the suit that UBS misstated and omitted important details.

Recent news reports show homebuyers flocking to high-end properties to close rates for jumbo loan mortgages, even as Congress wavers on a proposed bill that would cement higher thresholds for federally insured mortgages.

With recent reports signaling a throwback for public officials involved in debt-ceiling negotiations, housing analysts and market watchers worry about the possible fallout for government-backed mortgages in a default scenario come August. If the federal government defaults on its debt, analysts say, still-brittle mortgage markets will splinter as mortgage rates follow spikes in Treasury yields. Concerns continue to grow after a series of breakdowns between Congress and the White House.

On Tuesday the Federal Housing Finance Agency reported a slight 0.8 percent rise in home prices from March to April, representing a positive note in a brittle housing market.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency released research on this week indicating a greater-than-expected drive to high conforming jumbo mortgages (HCJMs) by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, raising questions about the long-term impact their buying spree may have on private markets. According to the research, the government-sponsored enterprises walked away this year with approximately 55 percent of HCJMs in 10 of the nation's high-cost counties, a number totaling approximately 50,000 mortgages worth over $30 billion.

The nation's largest association for mortgage bankers has issued a statement praising a last-minute extension of the comment deadline for Dodd-Frank's controversial risk-retention rule and its Qualified Residential Mortgage (QRM), which opponents charge will make loans more expensive for homebuyers. The Mortgage Bankers Association says the rule will have a "profound long-term effect" on the mortgage financing industry, which is good reason to give stakeholders more time to understand its full scope.