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Edward J. DeMarco, Acting Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has responded to an announcement from the House Financial Services Committee regarding HR 1221, The Equity in Government Compensation Act of 2011 . The bill would strip compensation packages of senior executives at Freddie...
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The House Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises took its microphones to New York City on Wednesday for a field hearing on " Facilitating Continued Investor Demand in the U.S. Mortgage Market without a Government Guarantee ." The representatives heard testimony from four...
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The New York Times is reporting that the government is seriously contemplating a broad-based refinancing of mortgages guaranteed by the two GSEs , Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in an effort to reduce payments by those borrowers who currently cannot refinance either due to negative equity in their homes...
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The Chairman of the Federal Reserve today told Congress in his Semiannual Monetary Policy Review that "Households report that they have little confidence in the durability of the recovery and about their own income prospects. Moreover, the ongoing weakness in home values is holding down household wealth...
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[I am away from the computer on a daily basis, and my access to e-mail is sporadic and not timely. In my place are daily commentaries from a series of very knowledgeable mortgage industry people with different backgrounds, and they have been given very little direction about what to write about - the...
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The House Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises has approved eight bills to end what it calls the bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the two government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) which have been in government conservatorship since August 2008. Seven of those bills...
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Realtors® attending the National Association of Realtors (NAR) mid-year legislative meetings and trade expo in Washington heard a panel of housing experts lay out the several solutions for housing finance reform. The six panelists discussing Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac: Obama Options and Beyond...
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Yesterday Freddie Mac announced net income of $676 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2011, compared to a net loss of $113 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2010. The company release states Freddie had a positive net worth of $1.2 billion on March 31, 2011. As a result, no additional funding...
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Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the House Committee on Financial Services today that Congress must tackle reforming Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae or the government sponsored enterprises (Enterprises) will merely return to their old form. Geithner's prepared testimony before the committee was...
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Originally published in the March 2011 issuance of Asset Securitization Report (www.sourcemedia.com) The joint Treasury/HUD report to Congress released this month was a major disappointment to market participants looking for a timely resolution to the status of the GSEs and the future of housing finance...
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Federal Reserve Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin called out housing finance players in a speech on Friday , reminding them of the "low road" they traveled before the housing collapse and the debt they owe the American people for rescuing them from their excesses. She also told her audience that reforming...
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The long-awaited report on the future of housing finance has been released by the Obama Administration. Below is the presser.... I highlighted some talking points. The first thing to take away from this paper is the Administration's intention to wind down Fannie and Freddie on a responsible timeline...
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The House Capital Markets Subcommittee held a hearing on Wednesday on reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Testimony came from representatives of three conservative "think tanks" and a single progressive one. The first three speakers presented outlines for reform that had the common theme of privatization...
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The new Chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises has invoked what he called "The Cantor Rule" as a framework for reforming the U.S. housing finance mechanism. Representative Scott Garrett (R-NJ) shared with attendees at the American...
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Another party, this time from the progressive side of the debate, has chimed in with its prescription for reforming the nation's housing finance system. This proposal, " A Responsible Market for Housing Finance " , is a product of the Mortgage Finance Working Group sponsored by the Center for American...