Articles About Fannie Mae

Foreclosure filings fell a dramatic 35 percent in July to the lowest level in nearly four years as lenders and state and federal agencies ramped up their efforts to keep delinquent borrowers in their homes, according to RealtyTrac Inc.  A total of 212,764 properties received default, auction or repossession notices, the lowest number in 44 […]

Several banks have found a new solution to the glut of foreclosed houses – many of them in poor condition.  It’s the bulldozer. Bank of America (BoA) owns a glut of abandoned houses that no one wants to purchase.  As a result, the nation’s largest mortgage servicer is bulldozing some of its most uninhabitable inventory.  Additionally, […]

Mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac might find themselves merged into a single government-run entity.  Representative Gary Miller (R-CA) is set to unveil a bill that would create a utility-like entity and phase out government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  The new company would buy mortgages and repackage them as government-backed securities.  The […]

The initial steps to dismantle Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are underway with the introduction of a bipartisan bill in the House of Representatives that would replace the mortgage giants with a minimum of five companies that would issue mortgage-backed securities with significant federal regulation.  The compromise legislation proposed by Representative John Campbell (R-CA) and […]

American renters who pay more than 50 percent of their income on housing has peaked at the highest level in 50 years, according to a report from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. Approximately 26 percent of renters – that’s more than 10 million people – are spending more than 50 percent of their […]

New home sales rose in March, with the number of properties on the market at its lowest since the 1960s.  Additional gains will be stymied by competition from the market’s glut of previously owned houses.  Single-family home sales rose 11.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted 300,000 unit annual rate, according to the Department of Commerce, […]

The Treasury Department is planning to sell $142 billion worth of toxic assets that it acquired during the financial crisis.  According to Treasury, it wants to sell approximately $10 million worth of assets every month, depending on market conditions and hopes to end the program next year.  Treasury acquired the securities — primarily 30-year, fixed-rate […]

The Obama administration and the Treasury Department have decided that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the public-private housing finance model in place for the past four decades – will come to an end, although they pledged to continue backing the agencies’ existing obligations. “The GSE (government-sponsored enterprise) model is dead,” an Obama administration official […]

President Barack Obama is proposing an option to create an insurance fund for mortgage-backed securities, similar to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation that protects Americans savings accounts. The proposal consists of three legislative options for making long-term changes to the housing finance system, while taking short-term moves to gradually reduce the government’s role in the […]

The Obama administration is leaning on mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to write down underwater loans and make life easier for homeowners who are at risk of default and may see their personal finances deteriorate.  The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) wants Fannie and Freddie to join a Federal Housing Authority (FHA) program […]