GSEs

While mortgage rate optimism kept consumer confidence about the home purchase market high in June, affordability worries pulled overall sentiment lower, a Fannie Mae survey said.

The post-crisis operational improvements at both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have resulted in stronger mortgage loan performance, a Fitch Ratings report said.

Former Freddie Mac CEO Donald Layton has joined the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies as a senior industry fellow focused on reform of the government-sponsored enterprises.

Despite rising delinquency levels, borrower performance on the underlying mortgages in GSE credit-risk transfer securitizations is strong enough to warrant ratings upgrades to more than half of nearly 1,200 outstanding note classes.

There is bipartisan agreement in the Senate that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are "too big to fail," but some lawmakers are skeptical that a SIFI designation is appropriate.

Although the performance of the government-sponsored enterprises' single-family loans continues to improve, the deeply delinquent totals remain significant in states with court-processed foreclosures.

The unrated notes being issued by the FREMF 2019-KG01 Mortgage Trust are backed entirely by workforce housing loans for green-friendly upgrades of older apartment buildings that fulfill affordable housing needs in communities.

As officials prepare plans for the government-sponsored enterprises' exit from conservatorship, there's no shortage of speculation about what those plans might look like and how they might affect the mortgage industry.

There are clear actions that regulators at the CFPB, SEC and FHFA can take to help attract investors into the housing market, argues former FHFA Director Ed DeMarco.

Director Mark Calabria urged lawmakers to grant the agency chartering authority similar to that of bank regulators to boost competition in the mortgage market.