Fannie Mae

Let’s say you’re an American named Maria living in Southern California.  The year is 2006.  You make $45,000 and your husband David makes another $40,000.  You have two children aged six and four and your two-bedroom apartment is getting…

Apparently the answer to this question is yes.  CNBC is reporting that home ‘owners’ who refinance their mortgages through loans backed by Fannie and Freddie will be able to borrow up to 125% of their homes’ value (hat tip Marshall…

Bloomberg has the goods on Fannie and they’re not good. Fannie’s regulator wants $19 billion from the U.S. government because the firm has negative capital. Fannie Mae had $23.2 billion in losses last quarter alone. And it says losses in…

In case you missed it, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have cost taxpayers tens of billions to date. The bill is still rising, however, as the two companies are looking for $50 billion more to avoid technical insolvency. Then there is…

Bankruptcy is a necessary part of a free market. I certainly believe this to be so. Rick Newman, who writes the blog "Flow Chart" over at U.S. News, is putting forward the provocative idea that failure is exactly what we needed more of in…

Marshall here. Slowly but surely, the Treasury is beginning to move more aggressively on providing help to homeowners, as opposed to bankers. This makes sense: A financial meltdown and housing deflation cannot be cured simply by pumping…

The Treasury Department is considering a plan to halt the slide in home prices that would lower mortgage rates using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The plan could reduce rates for newly issued loans to as low as 4.5%. Slowly, but surely, the…

Below is a chart of variable rate loan applications as per cent of total. This can be looked at from a contrary opinion point of view, that is people are afraid of variable rate loans after they got burned on the upside in the last…

I don’t understand the lack of imagination in DC. All the politicians have to do is tell the banks to lower their variable rate mortgage loans on the books to 4% right now, today or else and it is like $600-$750 billion of stimulus. With…

When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went bust, a number of major players were stung as the value of Fannie and Freddie preferred shares plummeted. Principal amongst these players was Gateway Bank, which had a huge percentage of bank capital…