Freddie Mac

Montgomery County on Monday filed a federal class action lawsuit against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, alleging the mortgage finance firms wrongly avoided paying transfer taxes in Maryland. In some instances, the companies have said they are exempt from the taxes (required to record documents, including deeds, at land records offices throughout the state) "because they are governmental entities or agencies," according to the county's complaint. But that's not true, claims the county.

Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler and nine other attorneys general sent a letter Monday to President Obama and the U.S. Senate's leaders demanding new management at the government entity that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The housing finance firms, which have been controlled by the federal government since 2008, have become an “obstruction” to economic recovery, said the letter signed by Gansler and the attorneys general of...

Residents from every state - more than 195,000 people - have signed an online petition that demands Freddie Mac test the homes it is selling for methamphetamine contamination. The petition was started on the website Change.org by Jonathan Hankins, who bought a house in Oregon from the government-run mortgage lender that turned out to be a former meth lab, according to a statement released Tuesday by the website. “Within weeks of moving in, my wife, my two year old son, and I all started experiencing terrible dry-mouth and mouth sores,” Hankins wrote on the site, in a description of his rationale for starting the appeal.

Montgomery County on Monday filed a federal class action lawsuit against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, alleging the mortgage finance firms wrongly avoided paying transfer taxes in Maryland. In some instances, the companies have said they are exempt from the taxes (required to record documents, including deeds, at land records offices throughout the state) "because they are governmental entities or agencies," according to the county's complaint. But that's not true, claims the county.

Freddie Mac said last week that it will phase out purchases of single-family home mortgages with reduced borrower credit documentation as well as adjustable-rate mortgages with low down payments.The action by the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. reflects a general secondary-market trend away from these types of loans. For example, in late October, the Federal National Mortgage Association announced tightening of its reduced-documentation programs.Specifically, Freddie Mac will gradually phase out, then discontinue after March 31, 1991, its purchase of mortgages with reduced documentation, as well as ARMs with loan-to-value ratios above 90 percent.

NEW ORLEANS -- The cost to take out a mortgage will rise if government-sponsored mortgage agencies are forced to raise their capital levels, according to Leland Brendsel, Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. chairman and chief executive.Both Freddie Mac and the Federal National Mortgage Association have been under federal pressure this year to raise capital levels.Mr. Brendsel said that if, for example, Freddie Mac is forced to double its capital reserves, the agency would raise the fees it charges lenders by 25 percent -- a cost that ultimately would be passed on to borrowers.

Freddie Mac, the nation's second-largest buyer of mortgages, unknowingly bought a small number of mortgages that had "unacceptable refinance" terms and then sold them in securities offerings to investors. The company said last week that an investigation had discovered that a California broker sold borrowers mortgages with above-market interest rates and then provided financial incentives to encourage quick refinancing. The broker, who was not identified, profited from the fees from the quick turnover.

A majority of homeowners who refinanced their homes in the last three months of 2000 took new mortgages that were at least 5 percent higher than their original mortgages, thanks to lower interest rates, according to Freddie Mac's quarterly refinance review. Seventy-eight percent of Freddie Mac-owned loans that were refinanced were for amounts greater than 5 percent of the original mortgage, up 1 percent when compared to the like quarter in 1999. However, the percentage was down from 82 percent who refinanced in the third quarter in 2000.

A CLASS ACTION lawsuit against the country's second-largest source of home loan money - Freddie Mac - is focusing new attention on a consumer protection statute that's probably unfamiliar to many homebuyers and mortgage borrowers. The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act governs lenders, landlords and others who obtain and use credit reports and scores to make decisions on consumers' applications. If a lender uses credit file information to reject an applicant or charge a higher interest rate, the lender is required to provide what the law terms an "adverse action" notice.

CHICAGO -- The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. kicked off a program last month that could make billions of dollars in loans available for low- and moderate-income rental housing around the country.The federally chartered agency, known as Freddie Mac, announced the first deal in a $100 million multifamily-housing pilot program, involving a package of loans totaling $5 million held by Harris Bank.The loans were made on eight Chicago buildings with a total of 219 apartment units.Jack Weir, president of the New York-based Local Initiatives Managed Assets Corp.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, ranking member of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, praised the U.S. Department of Justice's decision Wednesday to sue Bank of America over alleged reckless mortgage lending practices. The government claims that loose mortgage lending standards by Countrywide Financial, which Bank of America bought in 2008, ended up costing taxpayers at least $1 billion. "I welcome this announcement and strongly commend the Obama Administration, the Department of Justice, and the Inspectors General for their diligence in seeking accountability and justice on behalf of the American taxpayers and homeowners," Cummings said in a statement.

Residents from every state - more than 195,000 people - have signed an online petition that demands Freddie Mac test the homes it is selling for methamphetamine contamination. The petition was started on the website Change.org by Jonathan Hankins, who bought a house in Oregon from the government-run mortgage lender that turned out to be a former meth lab, according to a statement released Tuesday by the website. “Within weeks of moving in, my wife, my two year old son, and I all started experiencing terrible dry-mouth and mouth sores,” Hankins wrote on the site, in a description of his rationale for starting the appeal.

A Baltimore man pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud because he and others secured mortgages for six homes in Upper Fells Point with fraudulent information, prosecutors announced. Kenneth Koehler, 42, and his co-conspirators caused losses of more than $1 million to mortgage lenders because all six homes they purchased subsequently went into foreclosure, according to a statement from the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office. Four of the homes were on South Chapel Street, one home was in the 200 block of South Castle Street and another was in the 2200 block of Gough Street, according to Koehler's plea agreement.

All too often, I hear that President Barack Obama inherited this economic mess that we're in right now. Let's get the story straight for a change. He helped create this mess. In 2005, President Bush tried to push legislation through Congress to place regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Mr. Bush knew that these organizations' policies involving the lending of mortgage money to those that couldn't afford it were going to cripple the economy if not regulated. It was the efforts of Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd and Democratic Rep. Barney Frank, accompanied by Sen. Barack Obama, that were successful in blocking these regulations by threatening to filibuster.

I am glad that Occupy Baltimore is focusing on the foreclosure problem ("Occupy turns to housing," June 13), but blaming "those who amassed fortunes by speculating on collateralized mortgage payments" is off the mark. There is plenty of blame to go around, starting with the homeowners who treated their houses as ATM machines and refinanced several times over in a rising market only to find themselves underwater when the housing bubble burst. What about the real estate speculators who flew in on the red-eye from California to buy slum properties in Baltimore, figuring they could sell them later at a profit?

Housing experts say homeowners can wait as long as nine months to get approval to sell their home as a short sale, and efforts are underway to push lenders to give a prompt answer. HouseLogic says homebuyers may find themselves in the position of having to send multiple requests to their lender to ask for approval for them to sell their house for less than they owe while a potential buyer waits in the wings. HouseLogic, a service offered by the National Association of Realtors, provides information on homeownership, such as taxes and insurance.

CHICAGO -- The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. kicked off a program Wednesday that could make billions of dollars in loans available for low- and moderate-income rental housing around the country.The federally chartered agency, known as Freddie Mac, announced the first deal in a $100 million multifamily-housing pilot program, involving a package of loans totaling $5 million held by Harris Bank.The loans were made on eight Chicago buildings with a total of 219 apartment units.Jack Weir, president of the New York-based Local Initiatives Managed Assets Corp.

WASHINGTON -- A report to Congress raised questions yesterday about whether the government should continue to provide financial benefits to two private companies established by the government to make mortgages more readily available to low- and middle-income homebuyers.The report by the Congressional Budget Office is certain to intensify a long-running debate over whether the companies, known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, should retain an implicit government guarantee of the debt securities they issue in purchasing home mortgages from lenders and selling them to investors.

Internal Fannie Mae documents show the mortgage financier was about to launch a principal reduction program in 2010 after determining that it would save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, a Baltimore congressman says -- contradicting claims by Fannie's regulator that such a move would be costly. U.S. Reps. Elijah E. Cummings of Baltimore and John F. Tierney of Massachusetts, Democrats who sit on the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform, sent a joint letter Tuesday to regulator Edward DeMarco demanding more information about why the program was "mysteriously terminated" in July 2010.

In its editorials and Dan Rodricks columns, The Sun continues to emphasize and underscore the big lie that banks or "predatory lenders" were the cause of the housing crash ("What took so long?" Jan. 26). "Predatory lending" is a term of relatively recent vintage, since prior generations tended to hold individuals responsible for the greed and ignorance that drove irresponsible decision-making. Far better to investigate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Rep. Barney Frank for creating a bubble based on the idea that everyone should own a home.