Federal National Mortgage Association

The regulator who oversees national banks is protesting an agreement by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy mortgages only when lenders used outside home appraisers. John Dugan, the U.S. comptroller of the currency, said the accord that the two government-sponsored mortgage finance giants negotiated with New York Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo and their federal regulator was illegal, could hurt the home-loan industry and should be withdrawn.

Fresh concerns about the troubled housing and mortgage markets were triggered Thursday by speculation that the government would be forced to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the twin pillars of the home loan industry. Analysts worry that the mortgage giants won't be able to raise enough money from investors to cover rising losses from loan defaults. Those doubts have ramped up a sell-off by investors, sending shares of both companies to 17-year lows.

Acting to prevent a severe disruption of the mortgage market, the federal government stepped in Sunday with plans for a sweeping aid package designed to bolster confidence in battered home-loan giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The Bush administration said it would ask Congress to authorize the Treasury Department to lend Fannie and Freddie more money than current limits permit and buy stock in the two companies.

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, increasingly the point man for the Bush administration as it struggles to steady the economy, made an emergency trip to Capitol Hill on Wednesday seeking to quell a rebellion among conservatives over the plan to shore up struggling mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

John McCain has been winning over skeptical conservatives by embracing tax cuts while promising a new era of fiscal discipline if he wins the White House. But his fragile relationship with the Republican base will be tested again as he decides whether to support controversial plans for addressing the mortgage crisis.

Fannie Mae on Tuesday outlined a new pricing policy aimed at helping the mortgage finance giant gird against increased credit risks and losses from home loans it buys from mortgage lenders, but the changes could end up squeezing out many borrowers. Fannie Mae will double the fee it charges lenders and brokers to 0.50% from 0.25% beginning Oct. 1.

Mortgage finance company Fannie Mae acknowledged Tuesday that it spent more than $6,000 on a golf outing after it was seized by the government earlier this year but said it was halting similar company-sponsored events. Dallas-Fort Worth-area television station KTVT reported Monday night that Fannie paid for 20 golfers, including several company executives, to attend a Sept. 29 golf excursion in Texas.

The chief executives at mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ignored warnings that they were taking on too many risky loans years before the housing market plunged, according to documents released Tuesday by a House of Representatives committee.

Mortgage company Fannie Mae will allow tenants to remain in their homes and avoid eviction should the building's landlord go into foreclosure, according to a report Sunday by the Wall Street Journal. Fannie Mae, a government-controlled mortgage finance company, previously had said it would not evict tenants during the year-end holiday season. Despite that pledge, it came under pressure from a legal-aid group that threatened to sue over recent evictions in Connecticut, the newspaper said.

Several leading Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee said Wednesday that they would quiz the regulator of mortgage finance company Fannie Mae about approving more than $14 million in pay for the current chief executive. The pay for CEO Daniel Mudd was "astounding" since the company has not yet emerged from an accounting scandal that has so far forced the company to restate $6.3 billion in earnings from 2001 to mid-2004, Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, John E.