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WASHINGTON — U.S. mortgage giant Fannie Mae made money in the first three months of the year and is not seeking additional federal aid. It’s the first time the company has reported a net income gain since it was taken over by the government during the 2008 financial crisis.
Fannie on Wednesday reported that it earned net income attributable to common stockholders of $2.7 billion in the January-March quarter. That compares with a net loss of $6.5 billion in the first quarter of 2011.
Updated at 1:30 p.m. There’s a sizable portion of the American public that’s against bailing out underwater American homeowners under any circumstances. That sentiment was most eloquently summed up by CNBC’s Rick Santelli in 2009. His fiery speech on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade is credited with spurring the Tea Party movement [...]
WASHINGTON — Average U.S. rates for 30-year and 15-year fixed mortgages fell to fresh record lows this week, offering more incentive for Americans to buy or refinance homes. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the rate on the 30-year loan fell to 3.84 percent, the lowest since long-term mortgages began in the 1950s. That’s [...]
The conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac believes that the best way to keep people in their homes — and save taxpayers money — is a strategy called “principal forbearance.” Not everybody agrees.
DeMarco took to the Brookings Institute to defend himself against his critics, who argue he is hurting the economy by not backing principal reductions for underwater homeowners.
One of the many cans being kicked down Washington’s boulevards these days is the government conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, Congress and the Bush administration created the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and subsequently put Fannie and Freddie into conservatorship under its authority.
It’s wild to think that a strawberry picker who earned $15,000 qualified for a $720,000 mortgage in 2005. But it’s just as ridiculous to think that a buyer with a credit score of 720 and who can put 20% down may not have qualified for a loan in 2010. After the subprime mess of 2008, [...]
President Obama held a rally yesterday in Falls Church, Virginia, where he provided more details concerning his plan, mentioned briefly in his state of the union speech, to stabilize the housing market. The centerpiece of the plan is a new program that would expand HARP to many homeowners whose loans are not backed by government-owned [...]
Perhaps the single biggest headwind the American economy faces, rivaled only by unemployment, is the dismal housing market. American’s biggest source of wealth has been decimated over the past six years, so it was no surprise that President Obama, in his state of the union speech, promised responsible homeowners the chance to refinance and “save [...]
This morning I was on the Brian Lehrer show talking about the Obama Administration’s conference on the future of housing finance. You can listen to the interview here. One thing that came up during the interview was this concept of renting. Strange as it may seem, renting is a key part of the housing market. [...]
