Fannie Mae (FNMA)

[navycmdr]

Newer GSE Loans Account for Biggest Share of Unresolved Buyback Claims

By John Bancroft [e-mail]

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue to turn their focus in loan-quality reviews to more freshly originated mortgages, the vast majority of which are current.
A new Inside The GSEs analysis of disclosures made by the GSEs to the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that most of the lender repurchases made in 2014 continued to be associated with older, pre-crisis loans. But the biggest volume of pending and unresolved buyback demands were tied to loans securitized in 2013 and 2014.
Sellers repurchased or provided indemnification on some $4.046 billion of mortgages during 2014, the disclosures reveal. They were split roughly evenly between Freddie ($2.031 billion) and Fannie ($2.014 billion).
Despite an uptick in the fourth quarter, repurchases in 2014 were down 82.0 percent from the $22.459 billion recorded for the previous year. The overhang of pending and disputed buyback requests also fell sharply during 2014. For the full story and an exclusive table on Fannie/Freddie buyback activity, see the new edition of Inside The GSEs, now available online.