Barclays: New Fannie, Freddie mortgages will take business from FHA

The government-sponsored enterprises officially announced Monday the introduction of new, lower down payment mortgages.

And already the mortgage industry is reacting, with one analyst arguing that the boost to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could come at the expense of the Federal Housing Administration.

Read more...  http://www.housingwire.com/articles/32277-barclays-new-fannie-freddie-mortgages-will-take-business-from-fha

Fannie Economist Sees Rates Rising to Top of Range

Almost one year ago Mark Palim, Fannie Mae's Vice President of Applied Economic and Housing Research, analyzed what impact rising rates might have on the housing recovery.  When he wrote about this for the company's website last July, rates which had recently (in May) bottomed out at 3.35 percent had increased by 116 basis points to 4.51 percent.

Read more...http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/06232014_mortgage_rates.asp

Fannie Mae: Confidence in Home Price Gains Reaches Record Levels

Reports of strong home price gains drove confidence in the housing market up to record levels in May, Fannie Mae reported. According to the GSE's May 2013 National Housing Survey, Americans expressed record confidence in price gains, with 55 percent--a survey high--saying they believe prices will go up in the next year. In addition, the average 12-month home price change expectation was 3.9 percent, the highest level in the survey's history and a leap over April's 2.7 percent forecast. 

Read more...  http://www.dsnews.com/articles/fannie-mae-confidence-in-home-price-gains-reaches-record-levels-2013-06-10

Fannie Mae CEO: Profits don't recapitalize Fannie Mae | HousingWire

The rise in the guarantee fees charged by Fannie Mae is taking more of a profit share for the government-sponsored enterprise. The extent to which investors contribute to the Fannie Mae bottom line, on the other hand, is shrinking.  

Read more...  http://www.housingwire.com/news/2013/05/09/fannie-mae-ceo-profits-dont-recapitalize-fannie-mae?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+housingwire%2FuOVI+%28HousingWire%29

New help offered to struggling-borrowers

Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are launching another loan-modification program, but to qualify for this one, borrowers must be 90 days behind on their mortgage payments.

Borrowers can’t apply. But if they are three months or more behind on their loan, they will be contacted by their servicers. The goal of the new program is to reduce the government-owned agencies’ losses by modifying mortgages without requiring hardship documentation from the borrowers. Read more: New help offered to struggling-borrowers

Merger of Fannie, Freddie's bond units proposed - The Denver Post

WASHINGTON—The federal regulator who oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is putting forward a plan to combine the two mortgage giants' divisions that issue billions of dollars in securities backed by home loans.  Read more....  http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_22716377/merger-fannie-freddies-bond-units-proposed

HARP 3.0 : Four Important Changes The #MyRefi Program May Include

The Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) was first launched in 2009 as an economic stimulus program; a way to boost consumer spending.

At the time, mortgage rates were falling to new lows, but at the same time, home values were in retreat. Falling home values pushed a plethora of U.S. homeowners over the 80% loan-to-value threshold which meant that refinancing was impossible without either (1) reducing the loan balance back to 80 percent of the home's appraised value, or (2) paying private mortgage insurance (PMI).

Read more: HARP 3.0 : Four Important Changes The #MyRefi Program May Include

Housing Fundamentals Suggest Solid 2013 Recovery

Fannie Mae's economists said on Thursday that, despite the feeble note on which 2012 ended, the economy has the building blocks, including housing, for strong growth.  Housing is now on a sustained growth path as are manufacturing and energy production but, given circumstances in Washington, Doug Duncan, Orawin T. Velz, and Brian Hughes-Cromwick said they see no reason to revise their forecast from January.  They said, however, that if their forecast is wrong it will be erring on the side of being too conservative.  Read more...  http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/02212013_fannie_mae_forecast.asp

Mortgage bill faces tough road in Congress - DailyHerald.com

WASHINGTON — A sharply divided Congress isn't likely to jump at President Barack Obama's challenge for quick passage of a mortgage refinancing bill that supporters say could help millions of homeowners save big each year and boost the economy.

Obama praised the legislation in his State of the Union speech last week, saying the proposal would help more homeowners with mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac take advantage of low interest rates and refinance their loans.

Read more: Mortgage bill faces tough road in Congress - DailyHerald.com

Fannie and Freddie streamline deeds-in-lieu | Inman News

Borrowers for whom a loan modification or short sale is not a feasible alternative to foreclosure will soon have the option of handing their property over to the bank, regardless of whether they are current on their payments.
Read more: Fannie and Freddie streamline deeds-in-lieu | Inman News

Soon You Can Flee Your Underwater Home. But It Will Cost You - Yahoo! Finance

For some homeowners, March 1 will be Liberation Day. That’s when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will start allowing some homeowners who have been stuck in their homes—unable to move because they owe more than the property is worth—to relinquish the houses and cancel their debt.

Read more: Soon You Can Flee Your Underwater Home. But It Will Cost You - Yahoo! Finance

Fannie and Freddie May Face Competition In Multifamily Financing

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac still dominate the financing landscape for multifamily properties, but more competition is starting to come from life insurance companies, national banks, financial firms and structured financing vehicles in the form of commercial mortgage-backed securities, Jones Lang LaSalle said in a new report.

Read more: Fannie and Freddie May Face Competition In Multifamily Financing

Research Points to Strong Multifamily Sector This Year

The industry seems to agree the multifamily housing market is recovering well and will continue to show positive signs this year. Both Fannie Mae and the National Association of Home Builders report low vacancies and climbing rents for 2012 and anticipate a strong market in 2013.  Read more...  http://www.dsnews.com/articles/research-points-to-strong-multifamily-sector-this-year-2013-01-25

Bank of America reaches $11.6 billion settlement with Fannie Mae - The Denver Post

NEW YORK — Bank of America reached an $11.6 billion settlement with government mortgage agency Fannie Mae to settle claims resulting from mortgage-backed investments that soured during the housing crash, bringing it a step closer to clearing up its legacy of bad home loans.

Under the deal announced Monday, Bank of America will pay $3.6 billion in cash to Fannie Mae and buy back $6.75 billion in loans that the bank and its Countrywide Financial unit sold to the agency from Jan. 1, 2000, through Dec. 31, 2008. That includes about 30,000 loans.

The bank is also paying $1.3 billion to the agency for failing to deal with foreclosures fast enough.

Read more: Bank of America reaches $11.6 billion settlement with Fannie Mae - The Denver Post

Reagor: Colony behind big buy

The winning bidder for Fannie Mae's bulk sale of more than 300 sought-after foreclosure houses in metro Phoenix has been revealed: Santa Monica, Calif.-based Colony Capital.

But the true cost of the houses is still a mystery because of the complex financing deal approved by Fannie Mae's regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The more than 300 houses in Arizona are lumped in with a total of 970 foreclosure homes Colony is buying. The other properties are in California and Nevada.

Read more: Reagor: Colony behind big buy

Details on Fannie Mae's bulk REO sale in Phoenix remain elusive

Who bought Fannie Mae’s bulk portfolio of foreclosure homes in metro Phoenix has been a controversial secret since summer.

In late July, almost 300 foreclosure houses across metro Phoenix were purchased in a very quiet $34million cash deal. The buyer was a limited partnership called SFR 2012-1 US West based in Pasadena, Calif. Further investigation found the partnership was created by the seller, Fannie Mae. No public information was provided by Fannie Mae about the mystery deal.

Read more: Details on Fannie Mae's bulk REO sale in Phoenix remain elusive

Fannie Mae posts $2.2B net gain for Q2 - Yahoo! Finance

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fannie Mae earned $2.2 billion from April through June, its second quarterly gain in net income since being taken over by the government during the 2008 financial crisis.

The mortgage giant attributed the increase to improving home prices and fewer foreclosures.

Fannie said Wednesday that it paid a dividend of $2.9 billion to the Treasury Department and sought no additional aid.

Fannie's net income attributable to common shareholders was 37 cents per share in the second quarter. That compares with a net loss of $5.2 billion, or 90 cents per share, in the same period last year.

"We think home prices have stabilized," Fannie President and CEO Timothy Mayopoulos said in an interview on CNBC.

Fannie has reported gains in net income in both quarters this year. It earned $2.7 billion in the January-March quarter and paid a dividend of $2.8 billion to the Treasury.

The company received about $116 billion from the Treasury Department, the most expensive bailout of a single company. It has so far repaid about $26 billion.

Mayopoulos said he believes the company can be profitable going forward, though that doesn't necessarily mean that Fannie will make enough money to pay a dividend each quarter to the Treasury.

"It's going to depend on home prices," Mayopoulos said.

The housing market has started to recover this year after languishing since the bust in 2006 and 2007. Home sales are higher than last year, although they are still below healthy levels. Home prices are rising in many markets, partly because the supply of homes for sale has fallen.

U.S. home prices, including sales of distressed properties, jumped 2.5 percent in June from the same month in 2011, according to a report issued Tuesday by data analytics firm CoreLogic. And the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index reported price increases from April to May in all 20 cities tracked by the survey.

On Tuesday, McLean, Va.-based Freddie Mac reported net income of $1.2 billion for the second quarter and didn't request any additional federal aid for the period. The gain compared with a net loss of $3.76 billion in the same period a year ago.

Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee about half of all U.S. mortgages, or nearly 31 million home loans. Along with several federal agencies, they backed nearly 90 percent of new mortgages over the past year.

The government rescued the two companies during the financial crisis after they incurred massive losses on risky mortgages. Taxpayers have spent about $170 billion to rescue Fannie and Freddie. It could cost roughly $260 billion more to support the companies through 2014 after subtracting dividend payments, according to the government.

Anthony Sanders, a real estate finance professor at George Mason University, said stable prices have reduced Fannie and Freddie's losses on mortgages. But he doubts either Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae could ever repay their full debt to the taxpayers.

The companies are so deep in debt to the government that they'd need several decades of profits to fully repay, Sanders says.

By MARCY GORDON | Associated Press – Wed, Aug 8, 2012


Fannie Mae posts $2.2B net gain for Q2 - Yahoo! Finance

Fannie and Freddie principal cuts barred - USATODAY.com

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON A federal regulator is standing by its decision to bar Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from reducing principal for borrowers at risk of foreclosure, resisting pressure from the Obama administration.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced the decision Tuesday after months of considering the option.

The agency's acting director, Edward DeMarco, has long opposed allowing Fannie and Freddie to offer principal reduction.

DeMarco said an extensive analysis by the FHFA found the potential benefit was too small compared with the costs and risks. The risks include as many as 19,000 borrowers strategically defaulting on their loans, according to the analysis.

About 1.4million homeowners would be eligible for principal reductions from Fannie and Freddie.

The Obama administration immediately voiced its disappointment with the decision.

"I do not believe it is the best decision for the country," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a letter to DeMarco.

In Arizona, the state's Department of Housing has a program in place to assist homeowners who are at least 20percent underwater with refinancing or a loan modification, but Daniel Romm, department legislative liaison, said government-sponsored entities Fannie and Freddie have been reluctant to cooperate.

"We've had some issues dealing with the GSEs," Romm said.

The department is working on a new program in conjunction with the federal government's HARP 2.0 program that Romm said is likely to be more effective for helping homeowners with Fannie and Freddie loans. That program and its details are scheduled for rollout within the next month, he said.

Geithner said allowing Fannie and Freddie to do "targeted" reductions of principal for troubled borrowers would provide much-needed help to a significant number of troubled homeowners. He said that would help repair the nation's housing market and result in a net benefit to taxpayers.

The government rescued Fannie and Freddie in September 2008 to cover losses on soured mortgage loans. Since then, the FHFA, which is independent of the administration, has controlled their financial decisions.

U.S. taxpayers have spent roughly $170billion to rescue the companies. It could cost roughly $260billion more to support them through 2014 after subtracting dividend payments, according to the government.

The Treasury Department said in January that it would cover part of the cost if Fannie and Freddie could reduce principal when they modify mortgages for troubled borrowers. The department said it would use unspent housing-rescue money from the $700billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

DeMarco acknowledged administration officials and others could disagree with the decision and interpret its analysis differently. "Others could look at this and weigh these things differently," he said.

by Associated Press Aug 1, 2012


Fannie and Freddie principal cuts barred - USATODAY.com

Mystery bidder gets 275 homes - USATODAY.com

A few days ago, 275 foreclosure houses across metro Phoenix were purchased through a very quiet

$34 million cash deal. But it's not clear yet who the buyer is.

In February, Fannie Mae announced it would auction 2,490 foreclosure homes in Phoenix, Atlanta, Chicago, Florida, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. It was the first time the government-owned mortgage firm agreed to openly sell groups of foreclosure houses located in just one metro area. Since the crash, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac usually have sold homes they get back from lenders one by one, or in bulk with houses located all over the country.

Several buyers were interested in the Phoenix houses Fannie Mae was selling. Originally, 341 in the region were to be sold to one buyer, according to the federal government.

The sale of the Fannie Mae foreclosure homes became apparent to data guru Tom Ruff of AZBidder on Wednesday night, when he tracked metro Phoenix's REO inventory -- homes taken back by banks that haven't been resold -- and realized it had dropped by 5 percent.

In the latest sales filings, he discovered that a group called SFR 2012-1 US West LLC, located at 135 N. Los Robles Ave., fourth floor, in Pasadena, Calif., purchased 275 foreclosure homes from Fannie Mae that day. Each deal was individually recorded. Fannie Mae's Dallas office is listed as the seller.

More research shows the buyer is an LLC created by Fannie Mae.

Fannie Mae declined to comment. But a source close to the deal said Fannie Mae is transferring the properties to an LLC that the winning buyer will invest in through a private placement deal.

That means the actual sales of these homes may not be recorded in Arizona.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, Fannie Mae's overseer, announced earlier this month that winning bidders in the foreclosure auction had been chosen, with transactions expected to close early in the third quarter. But it didn't release names.

Before February, to get 10 foreclosure homes in Phoenix, an investor might have gotten a bundle of 30 in Detroit, five in Kansas City, two in Los Angeles and one in Boise, Idaho. Most of those are not foreclosure hot spots like Phoenix.

Now that foreclosures have slowed and metro Phoenix's median home price has climbed more than 30 percent in the past year, fewer deals are available for investors. To get 275 foreclosure homes without having to individually bid on each would be a coup if the houses are priced right.

Here are few examples of the 275 Fannie Mae foreclosure houses that sold individually on Wednesday: $265,000 for a Queen Creek house; $78,000 for a Scottsdale condominium; $59,000 for an El Mirage house; and $458,000 for a Peoria house.

Most of the 275 homes are leased.

The way the sales are being handled could be problematic for the Valley's housing market because the deals could be used as comps, and its not clear yet what the winning investor will actually pay for the houses. Ruff is pulling the sales from his data so they don't skew the area's median home price.

by Catherine Reagor USA Today Jul 28, 2012



Mystery bidder gets 275 homes - USATODAY.com

Reagor: Housing questions remain for many

Home prices are rising in metro Phoenix, foreclosures are falling and a growing number of homeowners are able to refinance with the federal Housing Affordable Refinance Program, HARP 2.0.

Still, questions abound about the region's housing market. Home values have climbed 25 percent already in the past year. Will the price-recovery trend continue? Are the bidding wars, created because of the small number of homes for sale, healthy for the market? How effective have the federal programs been so far?

Here are some comments on the topic from metro Phoenix homeowners who contacted me after recent stories and during an online chat Friday over lunch. The entire chat can be read at bit.ly/K2GEiE.

Question: Our daughter has an FHA loan with Wells Fargo, I don't believe the new HARP program works with FHA. Are you aware of any program that would modify her interest rate? -- Cal Christensen

Response: The FHA will begin a similar streamlined refinancing program like HARP on June 11.

Question: Should qualified buyers be jumping at the chance to invest? -- Jim T

Response: Investing in metro-Phoenix homes is very competitive now. Experienced investors with millions of dollars and property-management firms have been buying for the past few years. It's a business not for the weak of heart, to quote one of the buyers on the Maricopa County Courthouse steps bidding on foreclosure homes. Also, the number of foreclosures and short sales is dropping, so there are fewer bargain homes to purchase.

Observation: Prices are going to continue to climb until we get some influx of inventory. Once "normal" owners see and understand that prices are up 25 percent, they will jump on board, thus helping us return to a more normal market, or at least one step closer to one. -- Matthew Coates

Response: Many housing analysts agree. It will take regular homeowners selling to stabilize the market.

Question: Does your mortgage need to be financed through Fannie or Freddie in order to refinance through the HARP 2 program? -- Erik

Response: Yes, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac must hold your loan. But the FHA is launching a streamlined refinancing program next week similar to HARP. The federal government and the Arizona Department of Housing also are trying to find a way to encourage/force investors who hold mortgages to approve streamlined refinancings for homeowners who are underwater but continue to pay their mortgages.

Question: We recently had our home on the market for a price we thought was at a good range for our location. We are two blocks south of ASU in an older, established neighborhood around campus. We did not receive any bids on our house -- lots of showings but no bids. The Realtor encouraged us to drop the price, but we weren't willing to compromise on what we wanted out of the house with regard to equity. When do you feel will be the rebound on housing prices? How many years before it comes back? I see the stories about the home prices rising in the Valley. Will it take a year before the market is stabilized and prices are up, or longer? I'm taking advantage of the HARP 2 program and am happy to stay for a while. -- Donna

Response: Home prices are up 25 percent from a year ago. You live in an area that has retained a lot of its value. The forecast is for prices to continue to climb, but the problem is metro Phoenix's housing market is running out of supply. Homeowners like you being able to sell for a profit will signal a true stabilization of the market.

Here's one final comment, from John Steiner, and it's one that might inspire many Phoenix-area homeowners:

"We have just signed closing documents on a Fannie Mae DU Refi Plus (under HARP 2). We had been with Ditech/GMAC, but their loan officer was not very forthcoming with information. A Wells Fargo mortgage specialist was quite helpful. Since our loan was current and had never been delinquent, we qualified for the (refi) program. We were 25 to 40 percent underwater. Our loan did not require an appraisal, saving money. Bottom line is we went from a 5.25 percent, 15-year loan to a 3.75 percent, 15-year loan. I am passing this on because it may help others with a Fannie Mae loan."

by Catherine Reagor - Jun. 1, 2012 03:25 PM The Republic | azcentral.com



Reagor: Housing questions remain for many