Tag Archives: Freddie Mac

Freddie Mac released its U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook for May today, revealing that low mortgage rates kept affordability high in the first quarter of this year for buyers, but housing markets probably will see interest rates increase for the rest of the year.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) recently issued an update to mortgage-backed security (MBS) structure, also known as Single Security. The new changes to the Single Security structure are based on 23 responses to a “Request for Public Input: Proposed Single Security Structure (RFI)” released in August 2014 by the FHFA.

The nearly two-month long court battle between the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and Nomura Holdings came to an end Monday when a federal judge found the bank liable for selling shoddy mortgages to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac prior to the 2008 financial crisis.

In their Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS), Freddie Mac found that mortgage rates inched to the highest levels seen in nearly a month for the week ending May 7, 2015. Len Kiefer, deputy chief economist at Freddie Mac, attributes the rise in part to a selloff in German bonds that drove U.S. Treasury yields above 2.2 percent.

U.S. Congressman Ed Royce (R-California) has announced that he plans to submit legislation by the end of the week to prevent a potential pay increase for Freddie Mac CEO Donald Layton. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has given Freddie Mac and its fellow GSE, Fannie Mae, authorization to review the salaries of their respective CEOs, Layton and Timothy Mayopoulos. Both CEOs made $600,000 each without bonuses in 2014. The pay reviews for the top executives at the GSEs are largely due to concerns that the Enterprises will not be able to stay competitive because their CEOs make less than some lower-ranked executives.

Freddie Mac's net income for the first quarter of 2015 totaled $524 million, nearly double the total of a profitable but somewhat slow fourth quarter, according to Freddie Mac's Q1 2015 Financial Report released Tuesday morning. It marked the 14th consecutive quarter of profitability for Freddie Mac.

Since 2012, all GSE profits have been swept into Treasury. The GSEs each have a capital buffer of $1.8 billion, but it is required to be reduced by $600 million per year until it reaches zero by 2018. The Enterprises would require another draw on Treasury should their losses exceed their capital buffer.

Freddie Mac will be reporting its financial results for the first quarter of 2015 on Tuesday, May 5, according to an announcement from the GSE. The results will be announced before the U.S. financial markets open via a conference call at 9 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, May 5.

This week, Freddie Mac released the results of its Quarterly Refinance Analysis for the first quarter of this year, revealing that borrowers lowered their monthly mortgage payment and shortened their long-term payment by taking advantage unexpectedly low mortgage rates. Refinance activity accounted for 63 percent of all single-family originations.

The fact that the Enterprises remain in conservatorship of the FHFA has been a contentious topic among lawmakers and housing industry stakeholders in recent months. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac returned to profitability in 2012, but those profits declined substantially from 2013 to 2014. Recent reports, including one from the FHFA Inspector General, have warned that the profitability of the GSEs might not continue even though the conservatorship probably will.