Free Republic

Jon Prior at Politico reports that according to budget projections released Wednesday, taxpayers could see “a $51 billion profit on the $187 billion in federal funds that have been pumped into” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “since they were taken over by the government in 2008.” The catch? Fannie and Freddie would have to remain under government control for another 10 years. Wait a minute. If taxpayers spend $187 to bailout Fannie and Freddie, a $51 billion profit over ten years still leaves taxpayers in the hole for $136 billion. Politico is making it sound like a tremendous return on...

This morning, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) released their weekly mortgage application indices. Mortgage purchase applications rose 1.74% NSA from the preceding week. You can see the rise since the turn of the year. If we look at Seasonally Adjusted applications over a longer time frame, mortgage purchase applications were the highest since June 2010 and are back to June 1997 levels. Mortgage refinancing applications, on the other hand, fell 5.58% NSA from the previous week. They remain slightly below the average for the past 12 months. “Total purchase applications increased last week, due to an almost 7 percent increase...

Administration Encouraging Banks To Approve Riskier Mortgages Here we go again. This is reminiscent of Clinton/Cisneros/Cuomo’s National Homeownership Strategy that help almost destroy the banking system and left millions of households in foreclosure: nhsdream2 According to the Washington Post (4/2, Goldfarb, 489K),the Administration “is engaged in a broad push to make more home loans available to people with weaker credit, an effort that officials say will help power the economic recovery but that skeptics say could open the door to the risky lending that caused the housing crash in the first place.” The Post adds that “administration officials say they...

Yes, we have yet another government mortgage modification program. This makes the 15th government mortgage modification program to go along with HAMP, HARP, the Attorneys General Settlement and their various contortions. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) today announced that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will offer a new, simplified loan modification initiative to minimize losses and to help troubled borrowers avoid foreclosure and stay in their homes. Beginning July 1, servicers will be required to offer eligible borrowers who are at least 90 days delinquent on their mortgage an easy way to lower their monthly payments and modify their...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage giants in conservatorship, played their “Get out of jail free” card and are letting some borrowers wipe out negative equity on their homes. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will let some borrowers who kept up payments as their homes lost value erase their debts by giving up the properties, helping Americans escape underwater loans while adding to losses at the mortgage giants bailed out with $190 billion of taxpayer money. Non-delinquent borrowers with illness, job changes or other reasons they need to move will become eligible in March to apply for a so-called...

A top housing regulator on Tuesday spurned a proposal from President Obama and Democrats to let homeowners write down the principal on their mortgages. Edward DeMarco, the acting director of the federal agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, said the risk to taxpayers from the mortgage aid would far outweigh the benefits. “We concluded the potential benefit was too small and uncertain relative to unknown costs and risks,” DeMarco, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), said in a letter to Congress. DeMarco's move drew a swift rebuke from the Treasury Department, which had pushed FHFA...

PERRIS: Fannie Mae abandoned horse, records show A horse that was found blind, starving and nearly crippled at a foreclosed home in Perris may have been a victim of Fannie Mae. I reported on the horse’s rescue last week by a couple of local good Samaritans, but I didn’t know who owned the property. I do now. It was Fannie Mae. That’s what the County Assessor’s records show, anyway. I had a feeling this was the case, based on an unreliable tip that was blurted at me by the real estate agent in charge of the property. When I called...

The never-ending tale of the Administration and Congress pressuring FHFA Ed DeMarco to write down principal on residential mortgages is reminiscent of the Marx Brothers zany, non-nonsensical films like “Duck Soup,” “A Day at the Races,” and “A Night at the Opera.” Even worse, DeMarco seems to be wilting like a month-old celery stalk in the frig. Vicki Needham at The Hill has a nice review of the latest Marx Brothers zany comedy. Frank Keating, president and chief executive of the American Bankers Association: “Principal reductions create an incentive for a huge group of borrowers who have continued making their...

At a speech at the Brookings Institute in Washington D.C., IMF’s head Christine Lagarde called for the U.S. to perform principal reductions for residential mortgages. ... the IMF said U.S. steps to tackle the problem have had limited effect. The agency recommended wider efforts to reduce the value of mortgages rather than rescheduling or refinancing them. “Fannie and Freddie have to be part of the equation,” Lagarde said, wading into a vigorous U.S. policy debate. “U.S. households have to be able to unload a bit.” As I mentioned at the Brookings Institute on earlier this week, there is no evidence...

At a speech in Boston yesterday, FHFA's Acting Director Ed DeMarco once again brought up the topic of principal reductions for homeowners. In the speech, he discussed FHFA's reasoning for their preference of forbearance over principal reductions as a tool to help distressed homeowners. The fundamental point of a loan modification is to adjust the borrower’s monthly payment to an affordable level. We have seen repeatedly that what matters most in successfully helping borrowers is a meaningful reduction in the monthly payment to an amount that helps stabilize the family’s finances. Indeed, we have found that payment reduction, not loan-to-value,...

Chris Arnold at National Public Radio (NRP) posted this story today: “Freddie Mac Betting Against Struggling Homeowners.” The article quotes Chris Mayer from Columbia University, one of the authors of the Boyce, Hubbard and Mayer (MHM) streamlined mortgage refi plan. Streamlined mortgage refis come at a cost to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, pension funds and foreign investors who trusted the U.S. to play be the rules. I don’t really care if the benefits outweigh the costs since I am opposed to massive government intervention into the free market. It never works as expected and usually generates unintended consequences. Why isn’t...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Matt Martin, CEO of Matt Martin Real Estate Management, is eagerly awaiting the introduction of a program that the Obama administration hopes will transform foreclosed properties into rehabilitated rental units and kick-start the economy. He says he’s not alone. “There is a large chunk of capital, billions of dollars, sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what kind of program the government comes up with,” Martin said. At issue is a Federal Housing Finance Agency push to develop a program that is expected to use government financing or guarantees to attract investors to buy up big regional...

Charles E. "Ed" Haldeman, Jr., has announced his plans to step down as chief executive officer of mortgage giant Freddie Mac sometime in the next year. The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which regulates Freddie and its counterpart Fannie Mae, announced Wednesday that Haldeman is looking to leave the government-sponsored enterprise some time next year.

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama this week will announce a series of actions to help the economy that will not require congressional approval, including an initiative to make it easier for homeowners to refinance their mortgages, according to a White House official. The actions come as Obama is facing resistance from Republicans to a $447 billion jobs package he has urged Congress to pass. The first of the initiatives will be unveiled during Obama's three-day trip to western states beginning Monday. He will discuss the changes in mortgage rules at a stop in Nevada, which has one of the hardest-hit...

Who’s the largest owner of REO (bank-owned) inventory in the country? The taxpayers! That’s right. You and me. Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), are currently holding approximately 250,000 foreclosed homes. That’s roughly half of all unsold, repossessed properties. Plus, these government-backed agencies may soon be forced to repossess 830,000 more homes currently in some stage of foreclosure. What’s a government to do with so many distressed properties? Unloading them into the market would only further depress values, while damaging the fragile U.S. economy that depends on real estate stability. Holding the...

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was a key architect of a law passed in 1992 that set Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on the road to ruin, according to a new book by Robert Stowe England to be released September 30 by Praeger. The book, Black Box Casino, uncovers the myriad factors that led to the financial crisis of 2008, the worst financial implosion of modern times. This story is one of many threads woven into the book's narrative. ACORN was a key leader in clandestine negotiations among housing activists to shape new legislation that would...

Regulators are nearing a settlement with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over whether the mortgage finance giants adequately disclosed their exposure to risky subprime loans, bringing to a close a three-year investigation. The proposed agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, under the terms being discussed, would include no monetary penalty or admission of fraud, according to several people briefed on the case. But a settlement would represent the most significant acknowledgement

Intriguing note from POLITICO's Ben White today regarding the FHFA lawsuits against 17 of America's biggest banks. [Morning Money] hears that instead of contemplating settlements of the FHFA mortgage-backed securities lawsuits, big banks and their attorneys are more likely to pursue what insiders describe as an all out war strategy in which they go after Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (and by default their Democratic supporters) in a scorched earth strategy to show the GSE’s took an active role in creating the very securities they are now suing the banks over.

Dear Banks, Remember all of that bailout money you received? Sure hope you saved some of it. US authorities are preparing to sue more than a dozen big banks over claims they misrepresented the quality of mortgages sold during the 2006-7 housing bubble.The US Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which is overseeing the remains of failed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is reportedly planning to argue that America’s biggest banks failed to check the health of mortgages before they sold them on to investors. The collapse of hundreds of thousands of sub-prime mortgages triggered the 2008 credit crisis...

Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs are among those expected to be named in the lawsuit. The agency that oversees U.S. mortgage markets is preparing to file suit against more than a dozen big banks, accusing them of misrepresenting the quality of mortgages they packaged and sold during the housing bubble, The New York Times reported on Thursday. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is expected to file suit against Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, among other banks, the Times reported, citing three...