Fannie Mae

As our story pointed out Thursday, investors are worried about a lot of banks lately — including the Federal Home Loan Banks, the 12 regional institutions that are a crucial source of low-cost mortgage money to many other banks.
For years, the obscure banks had a reputation for poor risk controls and sloppy accounting, as regulators [...]

Elana Schor at Talking Points Memo has a great inauguration interview with Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.). She asked him about TWI’s story last week revealing that homeowners have to sign away their rights to sue lenders, if they want to get a loan modification under Fannie and Freddie’s streamlined loan modification program.
Frank said he had [...]

According to a review of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac refinancing documents by TWI, buried deep in the fine print lies language that strips legal rights for homeowners.

Putting foreclosures on hold to allow time for lenders and servicers to work things out is a popular notion these days. Recently, both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac extended their holiday foreclosure suspension to Jan. 31, giving the companies more time to hammer out the details of their streamlined loan modification program. As TWI pointed [...]

Congress and the president rushed to rescue the financial system with a $700-billion bailout. Now they need to turn their attention to the housing front, where foreclosures continue to mount. One proposed solution: modify the terms of existing mortgages.

“Partially,” answered Alan Greenspan, the former oracle and maestro of the Federal Reserve between 1987-2006.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a great hearing yesterday on the role that the credit rating agencies played in the financial system’s meltdown. Today’s hearing on federal regulators on Wall Street has been more theater so far.

Democrats and Republicans came together for the Wall Street rescue. But as they begin deliberations on long-term reforms, both seem to be prepping for a heated partisan battle.

The House oversight committee is holding a hearing now on the collapse of Lehman Bros. and the financial crisis generally. This hearing– and four others– will likely provide hints of how Congress, post-bailout bill, will try to revamp how the government polices Wall Street.
The committee has produced internal Lehman Bros. documents that show Lehman CEO [...]

“Saturday Night Live’s” debate skits and Tina Fey as Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin usually draw all the attention this campaign season, especially from the political blogs that post excerpts on Sundays.
But this weekend, the show managed to take on the mortgage crisis — not the easiest topic for humor.
At L.A. Land, Peter Viles says that [...]

This is really getting ridiculous — but, then again, not altogether surprising.