Free Republic

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) mounted a spirited defense of affordable housing goals on Tuesday as she laid out her vision for overhauling the housing market. In her first public remarks on housing finance reform, Warren laid out her vision for overhauling the system after the subprime meltdown, and emphasized that Congress should ensure mortgages remain affordable across the middle class, calling it the "centerpiece of the American Dream." Appearing before the Mortgage Bankers Association, Warren said affordable housing goals, long pointed to by conservatives as a driving force in the creation of the risky mortgages that sunk the system, had...

As former Reagan adviser David Stockman said about Obamacare, “It is a massive entitlement to end all entitlements.” But housing is an entitlement as well. Last week, no less than 63 members of the House and 13 Senators wrote to Financial Housing Finance Administration chief Ed Demarco demanding that he not lower the maximum loan limit for mortgages guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In earlier correspondence to DeMarco, first reported by National Mortgage News, National Association of Realtors (NAR) President Gary Thomas questioned the legality of FHFA reducing the loan limits at this time. “Our nation’s housing market...

Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant in conservatorship, is making a pitch to investors to purchase their risk-sharing bonds. The pitch? Fannie Mae has better standards than it did during the housing bubble. If Fannie Mae standards during housing boom were similar to today, delinquencies would have been as little as a quarter as high, according to data in presentation posted on its website as the company woos investors for new risk-sharing notes. • 12.4% of 2007 vintage Fannie mortgages (in 60-80% LTV category) has ever been 180 days delinquent, excluding loans liquidated or delinquent in first 6 months. • 3%...

I was interviewed by a reporter from the Times of London on banks loosening credit standards and whether that will jumpstart the housing market. I said it is doubtful. Expanding the credit box only works if borrowers want to borrow, or feel comfortable doing so. As the economy rebounds and home values climb at about the fastest pace since 2006, lenders including the largest, Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp., and mortgage insurers are easing the tightest credit conditions in two decades, lifting restrictions put in place after the worst real estate bust since the Great Depression....

The exploding Federal debt and trillion dollar deficits is well known. At least the rate of growth in Federal debt and deficits has begun to slow a little. Federal budget deficit is now below a trillion. usdc082913 USDebtClock.org estimates that unfunded liabilities are $125 trillion, but James Hamilton estimates that off-balance liabilities are “only” $70 trillion. In either case, these are scary numbers for our children and grandchildren. Not to mention me. The good news in this swamp of foul-smelling debt and unfunded promises is that GSE (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc) liabilities have flat-lined in recent years since the...

Welcome students to my Fall 2013 Fixed-Income Securities class. Since mortgage-backed securities are a big part of the US fixed-income market, let’s start with the largest players in the market: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae is located in Washington DC and Freddie Mac is located in McLean Virginia (hence puzzling why Virginia Senator Mark Warner (Democrat) is interested in winding down both enterprises. The regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (and the Federal Home Loan Banks) is the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). And FHFA has a watchdog, the Inspector General. So the watchdog has a watchdog....

Freddie Mac today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing average fixed mortgage rates following bond yields higher, and reaching new highs for the year, with the expectant release of the Fed’s comments around taper timing of its bond purchase program. 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.58 percent with an average 0.8 point for the week ending August 22, 2013, up from last week when it averaged 4.40 percent. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 3.66 percent. freddie30 Here is the Freddie rate against the 10 year Treasury yield. freddie30t30y Mortgage-backed securities...

According to Kate Berry of American Banker, the cost of doing business with the Federal Housing Administration could skyrocket if the agency adopts a new method for calculating lenders’ liability for poorly underwritten loans that default. The method under consideration would have the FHA examine a random sampling of each lender’s loans, calculate the percentage of loans in the sample with underwriting defects, and then extrapolate that rate to the lender’s FHA portfolio. Lenders would then have to compensate FHA for the “estimated total risk” to the agency’s insurance fund. “If this goes through, it means it will be a...

In just about seven weeks, people will be able to start buying Obamacare-approved insurance plans through the new health care exchanges. But already, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is predicting those plans, and the whole system of distributing them, will eventually be moot. Reid said he thinks the country has to “work our way past” insurance-based health care during a Friday night appearance on Vegas PBS’ program “Nevada Week in Review.” “What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever,” Reid said. When then asked...

President Obama is going to announce a plan whose main goal appears to be subsidizing mortgage backed securities. Unfortunately the readers of the Washington Post article on the piece probably would not realize this fact. The article simply repeats the Obama administration's assertion that government backing is needed for 30-year mortgages to exist, which it asserted are the backbone of home ownership. "Traveling to Phoenix on Tuesday, Obama is planning to call for a new system, built in part on government backing, that will enable wide access to 30-year mortgages, which are a rarity in other countries. That will require,...

It is time to close both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—the government-sponsored mortgage giants. Both entities distort the country’s housing finance market by issuing mortgage-backed securities with subsidized government guarantees that the mortgages will be repaid. If guarantees are necessary, they should be priced and issued by the private sector, not by the state. Financial institutions expert David C. John details specific steps to achieve this shutdown carefully and methodically without further upsetting the delicate housing market—and without making the situation worse.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced today that it is directing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to limit their future mortgage acquisitions to loans that meet the requirements for a qualified mortgage, including those that meet the special or temporary qualified mortgage definition, and loans that are exempt from the “ability to repay” requirements under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank). In January, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a final rule implementing the “ability to repay” provisions of Dodd-Frank, including certain protections from liability for loans that meet the criteria of a qualified...

President Obama is in Phoenix today to discuss fixing the housing market. It is reminiscent of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s speeches in the 1930 on how to fix the housing market. The federal government began its response to the housing crisis in 1932, with the enactment of the Federal Home Loan Bank Act (the Bank Act). The Bank Act created the Federal Home Loan Bank System and the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBank Board) as its regulator. The federal government also created the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and Fannie Mae. And the creation...

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 spent $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...

First off, I welcome President Barack Obama’s call to shutter mortgage giants (and giant pains in the public arse) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Many conservatives and libertarians have been beating that drum since 2008 and before, back when Obama was voting present on regulation of Fannie/Freddie and taking more in donations from them than all but one lawmaker. Now, it seems, we can work together on this project, as Obama pushed a Senate plan to close Fannie and Freddie during an economic address in Arizona: But as home prices rise, we can’t just re-inflate a housing bubble. That’s the...

Back in September of 2008, Sarah Palin spoke at a Colorado Springs rally. During her address, she lamented the all-encompassing power of government sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. She argued that a potential McCain administration would rein the companies in. As she put it: “John McCain has been calling for years to reform things and cut bureaucracy, even at the lending agencies that our government supports. The fact is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers. The McCain-Palin administration will make them smaller and smarter and more effective for...

President Barack Obama on Wednesday, in his speech on the U.S. economy, spelled out the beginning of the end for federally controlled mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. “We’ll work with both parties to turn the page on Fannie and Freddie, and build a housing finance system that’s rock-solid for future generations,” Obama said, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. See more Obama speech coverage. That might take a while. True, both the House and the Senate are working on legislation to get rid of the giants, which were took under control by the federal government in...

Buoyed by an improving housing market, President Barack Obama on Tuesday proposed a broad overhaul of the nation's mortgage finance system, including winding down government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He declared that taxpayers should never again be left "holding the bag" for the mortgage giants' bad bets. Obama outlined his proposals in Phoenix, the once foreclosure-riddled city at the epicenter of the nation's housing crisis. The housing market in Phoenix, as well as in many other parts of the country, has rebounded robustly, with prices in the southwestern city up 66 percent from the low point in 2011...

Freddie Mac posted its second largest profit and will pay $4.4 billion to Treasury. This is in spite of flat mortgage purchase applications. In other words, Death Valley for households. mbapurcch080713 Senior preferred stock outstanding and held by Treasury remained $72.3 billion, as dividend payments do not reduce prior Treasury draws. Of course, shrinking mortgage delinquencies coupled with skyrocketing house prices translates into higher profits. mbadlinghp To be quite frank, improving profits at both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will likely slow down the impetus for the GSE change that President Obama claims to support. Thanks to the vigilance of...

Big Government: President Obama is renewing calls to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But it's just another ruse to prevent these costly government failures from being privatized. While outlining his plan Tuesday in a housing speech in Phoenix, Obama proved he's the master of talking out of both sides of his mouth. In one breath, he encouraged the private market to take a bigger role in home lending, and even suggested the government's role should be limited. Yet in the next, he argued the government still plays a vital role in the mortgage market by guaranteeing "affordable housing" for...