FHFA

Policymakers and mortgage industry participants may benefit from the first public release of loan-level data collected by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Housing Finance Agency.  The information includes insights about borrower experiences when getting a residential mortgage compiled quarterly in the agencies’ National Survey of Mortgage Originations (NSMO).

The NSMO is a component of the National Mortgage Database, which was launched in 2012 as the first comprehensive repository of detailed mortgage loan information based on borrower experiences obtaining a residential mortgage.

Find out more details about the publication of the survey data.

Multifamily lending caps for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will remain $35 billion apiece in 2019, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) recently announced.

The agency also detailed new requirements for certain loans to be excluded from the cap.

Read on to get more details about how the cap is determined and what loans qualify for exclusion.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have collaborated to launch a centralized clearinghouse of online resources to assist lenders, servicers, housing counselors and other real estate professionals in serving limited English proficient (LEP) borrowers called Mortgage Translations.

The entities noted that the share of LEP borrowers in the mortgage market continues to grow, and is not expected to stop in the coming decades.

Read on to learn more about what resources are being offered through the clearinghouse.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has issued a proposed rule regarding the Uniform Mortgage-Backed Security Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will begin offering in June 2019.

The new, common security will replace the government-sponsored enterprises’ current TBA-eligible mortgage-backed securities.

Find out more about how the FHFA believes the new rule will benefit the secondary market and consumers.

Lamenting the fact that the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) have remained under conservatorship for 10 years, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) revealed a new bipartisan proposal for dramatic secondary market reforms at the outset of a hearing about the state of the housing finance system.

Hensarling stated that he believes their proposal also would preserve aspects of the current secondary market system which the industry favors. Multiple industry trade groups have expressed strong support for allowing the federal government to maintain a role in supporting the housing finance system.

Find out more about the proposal and the industry’s position.

Prior to the unveiling of Rep. Jeb Hensarling’s (R-Texas) legislative proposal to reform the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), multiple industry advocacy groups wrote to congressional leaders urging them to codify measures imposed during the conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Among the measures the organizations wish to see etched into law are those that have provided pricing parity across mortgage lenders, protected taxpayers from excessive risk, implemented a new single-family infrastructure in the secondary market and provided support for strong, sustained liquidity in the multifamily rental market.

Find out more details about what the organizations are advocating.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac no longer will have a significant stake in the single-family rental marketplace with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) having concluded that the market’s larger investors can continue to succeed without liquidity provided by the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs).

The announcement marks the end of the GSEs’ single-family rental pilot programs, initiated two years ago to help the entities “test and learn” more about the market and best practices.

Find out more details about the agency’s decision.

At the 2018 National Settlement Services Summit (NS3) in Detroit, panelists addressed how title agents, the keepers of critical data “gold,” can best leverage it to acquire market share and business. The title agent is at the center of the closing transaction and captures critical data elements that lenders need to meet for compliance.

DocMagic eServices Director Tim Anderson and Pepper Hamilton, LLP, Special Counsel John Levonick told the audience that despite two years of TRID and now with the new FHFA Uniform Closing Dataset (UCD) requirement, most processes are still very manual so they keep asking the regulatory agencies and GSEs to water down and delay the requirements. 

Read on to learn more. 

Electing to instead shift its focus toward implementing regulatory relief provisions enacted by S. 2155, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) recently said there will not be a 2018 decision on updating the credit scoring model used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The recently enacted law requires the FHFA to engage in rulemaking to define the standards and criteria the government-sponsored enterprises will use to validate credit score models.

Find out more about the agency’s decision and what it means for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has declared the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to be unconstitutionally structured, making it the second federal regulatory body to receive such a ruling within the past month.

The ruling has meaningful implications for those advocating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be recapitalized and released from conservatorship under the FHFA.

Learn some of the details that led to the ruling by the three-judge panel.