Federal Housing Finance Agency

    Is Freddie Mac, the taxpayer-owned mortgage company, betting against homeowners? The Treasury Department has launched an investigation into that very question. The probe comes after a report from ProPublica and NPR showing that Freddie has invested billions of dollars betting that U.S. homeowners won't be able to refinance their mortgages at today's lower rates. In essence, Freddie has been hedging its risk by purchasing what's known as "inverse floater" securities -- an investment in homeowners' interest payments.

California is suing the federal government to stop it from derailing a program that allows homeowners to finance solar panels and other energy-saving improvements through their property tax bills. Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown on Wednesday filed suit in federal court in Oakland against Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and their regulatory agency, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which have effectively shut down the financing vehicle in California. The Property Assessed Clean Energy program, known as PACE, was pioneered in Berkeley.

Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant that was bailed out by taxpayers, reported a quarterly loss of $13.1 billion and said there are doubts about its long-term viability as it asked the Treasury Department for more money. Fannie Mae said Monday that it lost $13.1 billion, or $2.29 a share, in the first quarter, compared with a loss of $23.2 billion, or $4.09, a year earlier. "Our first-quarter results were driven primarily by credit-related expenses, which remain at elevated levels due to weaknesses in the economy and the housing market," the government-controlled mortgage-finance firm said.

Four Democratic senators Thursday urged mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to temporarily freeze foreclosures on loans they hold. The troubled companies, seized by the federal government Sunday, should help struggling borrowers swap their mortgages for more affordable loans and stay in their homes, the lawmakers said in a letter to the new chief executives and federal regulator running Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It was the latest sign...

Investigators with the California attorney general's office have subpoenaed information from mortgage titans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as part of a wide-ranging inquiry into lending and foreclosure practices in the state. The subpoenas ask the government-controlled finance companies to answer a series of questions about their activities in California, including their roles as landlords who own thousands of foreclosed properties. The attorney general's office is also seeking details of Fannie and Freddie's mortgage-servicing and home-repossession practices, according to a person familiar with the matter.

You can love or you can hate the recent $25-billion federal-state mortgage foreclosure settlement, but there's no getting around one simple fact: There's a huge, gaping hole right in the middle of it. The hole is that if your home loan has been bought from your lender by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, you're not eligible for the mortgage relief encompassed by the deal. Since Fannie and Freddie control well more than half of all outstanding mortgages, this shortcoming looks to be what engineers would call "non-trivial.

The regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wants to gradually shrink the seized housing finance giants and create a new market for mortgage-backed securities to help the private sector to replace them. The recommendations came in a new strategic plan for Fannie and Freddie submitted to lawmakers by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which has overseen the companies since they were put into government conservatorship in 2008 to avoid their failure. The FHFA is seeking to jump-start stalled efforts in Washington to find an endgame for Fannie and Freddie, which are 80% owned by taxpayers and have received about $183 billion in bailout money.

A congressional investigation has found that Countrywide Financial Corp. made 173 preferential mortgage loans to employees of housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which purchased many of the company's loans. The mortgages were made as part of Countrywide's VIP program, known informally as "Friends of Angelo" for former Countrywide Chief Executive Angelo R. Mozilo. The program offered discounted rates and other perks. Previous investigations found that VIP loans were given to some influential Washington players, including Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.

The federal government executed a sweeping takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Sunday in a move aimed at expanding the pool of money available for home finance and arresting a plunge in housing prices that endangers the nation's economy. The basic elements of the aggressive plan start taking effect immediately, but longer-term measures -- especially provisions to grow, then shrink the firms -- are likely to be targets of contention for months to come. "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are so large and so interwoven in our financial system that a failure of either of them would cause great turmoil . . . at home and around the globe," Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson said in announcing the government's actions.

Pay for the top 15 executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be cut by 24% this year, led by plans to slash the total annual compensation for new chief executives of the housing finance giants from $6 million to $500,000, federal regulators said Friday. The announcement came after congressional outrage over salaries and bonuses at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were seized by the government in 2008 and have received about $183 billion in taxpayer money to cover huge losses in their mortgage portfolios.