In a significant policy shift under the Trump administration, the new Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Director Bill Pulte issued an order on March 25, 2025 terminating special purpose credit programs (SPCPs) supported...more
Justin Wiseman, Vice President and Regulatory Counsel at the Mortgage Bankers Association, joins RegFi co-hosts Jerry Buckley and Sherry Safchuk to discuss how housing availability and affordability have moved to the...more
On June 6, 2024 federal regulators published a final rule addressing Quality Control Standards for Automated Valuation Models. This was a collaborative rulemaking effort that included regulators from the Office of the...more
Pursuant to section 1473(q) of the Dodd-Frank Act, a group of federal agencies have proposed a quality control rule for automated valuation models (AVMs). The agencies are the Comptroller of the Currency, Consumer Financial...more
Stemming from the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) 2019 validation and approval of credit score models final rule, the FHFA announced in October 2022 that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored...more
Recently, the FHFA issued a request for input (RFI) on a single-family pricing framework for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (GSEs), including feedback on policy priorities and goals that FHFA should pursue in its oversight of the...more
We previously reported on recent mortgage rulemakings that were finalized by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) late last year. Of the two final rules from the Bureau, one drastically simplifies the...more
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) issued two relatively welcome surprises yesterday. First, along with ditching a debt-to-income ratio (“DTI”) ceiling, the agency expanded its proposed general Qualified...more
The CARES Act provided historic, temporary relief to mortgage holders facing Covid-19-related financial troubles. R. Aaron Chastain, partner at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, looks at where mortgage lenders and servicers...more
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) on October 20 issued a final rule to extend the government-sponsored enterprises patch (GSE Patch), i.e., the “temporary qualified mortgage” exemption within the...more
In the News. On the heels of a lawsuit challenging the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) recently issued Madden fix/valid when made rule, eight state attorneys general filed suit challenging a similar rule...more
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) issued a proposed rule on August 18 to create a new category of seasoned qualified mortgages (Seasoned QMs) that, if finalized as written, would carry significant...more
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on June 22 issued two proposed rules with significant implications for the mortgage marketplace....more
The CFPB recently proposed a temporary extension of the qualified mortgage (QM) that is based on a loan being eligible for sale to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac (often referred to as the “GSE Patch”). ...more
In a new era of double-digit unemployment resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, it may be tough for a mortgage lender to predict the amount and stability of someone’s income in order to determine qualification for a home...more
On May 14, 2020, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced an extension of its eviction and foreclosure moratorium due to the COVID-19 pandemic until June 30, 2020. This is an extension of FHFA's March 18 directive...more
On April 6, 2020, the Chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, Maxine Waters, issued a broad memo outlining additional Democratic priorities for any subsequent Coronavirus relief package....more
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have both issued guidance addressing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on borrowers with multifamily property mortgages....more
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issued several guidance letters and bulletins to sellers and servicers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic....more
When the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) last summer issued its Advance Notice of Proposed Rule Making (“ANPR”) to revise the definition of a “Qualified Mortgage” (“QM”) under the Dodd-Frank Act’s...more
What legislative activity can we expect in 2020 in the area of housing finance reform? With the Senate kicking off the New Year with an impeachment trial, it is highly unlikely Congress will make much headway on housing...more
The prospect of the U.S. Congress acting on housing reform this year remains unlikely. The House Democrats’ determination to formalize the impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s involvement with Ukraine and begin public...more
We continue to gauge the potential for Congress to act on the administration’s housing finance plan and/or pass their own before adjourning for the year. When Congress returned from August recess, members faced an ambitious...more
The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Department of Housing released the much-anticipated housing finance reform plan to reduce the government’s role in housing and end government control of both Fannie Mae and Freddie...more