Fannie Mae

By John E. Sununu For most Americans, Friday afternoons are filled with positive anticipation of the weekend. In Washington, though, Friday afternoons are when government officials dump stories they want to bury. (Good news is dropped on Mondays, so bureaucrats can talk about it all week.) So when the Securities and Exchange Commission chose a recent Friday to announce a lawsuit against six former Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives, it wasn't because the Obama administration wanted to draw attention to the action.

Fannie Mae, the nationwide mortgage company, opened a Philadelphia Mortgage Help Center today to provide free education and counseling to Philadelphia-area residents struggling with foreclosure issues. The center, at 399 Franklin Mills Circle in the Northeast, is the latest of nine to open across the country. The services are available only for homeowners with a mortgage owned by Fannie Mae and require an appointment, which can be made by calling 866-442-8570.    - Alan J. Heavens  

The Senate yesterday approved legislation aimed at preventing massive taxpayer bailouts of two government-backed enterprises that together stand behind $900 billion in home mortgages. The measure, approved 77-19, would tighten federal oversight of the Federal National Mortgage Association, called Fannie Mae, and the Federal Home Loan Mortage Corp., known as Freddie Mac. Although both enterprises are owned by stockholders, they are chartered by Congress and back loans that are implicitly guaranteed by the federal government.

The nation's largest supplier of mortgage credit now requires local lenders to cancel private mortgage insurance if it is judged to be unnecessary. The new rule covers conventional loans purchased or financed by the Federal National Mortgage Association, or Fannie Mae, so it does not cover all mortgages. Nor does it cover all lenders. The company purchased loans last year from 1,600 lenders. But nearly 4,000 lenders have agreed to follow Fannie Mae's guidelines, making the effect of the new rule wider than it first appeared.

The man who might have the biggest stake in Philadelphia's future isn't Mayor Rendell. It isn't City Council President John Street either. Nor is it the chief executive of a big corporation. The man with the biggest bet on the city's future - $2.1 billion to be exact - is an art-loving, 6-foot-4 African-American from Houston who's been in town only four years. His name is Kenneth J. Bacon. He is senior vice president for the northeast regional office of Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae is not a chain of restaurants.

It's called DHC, or Desktop Housing Counselor, and all 25 Philadelphia housing counseling agencies soon will be using it, thanks to Fannie Mae. The Federal National Mortgage Association, the nation's largest source of mortgage funds, developed the computer program and is donating copies of the software to the city-subsidized non-profits to help process the thousands of potential homebuyers they counsel each year. Serving these low- and moderate-income clients, who often have income or credit problems, is a time-consuming job that generates tons of paperwork - two things that DHC is designed to significantly reduce, said Barry Zigas, who heads Fannie Mae's housing impact division.

Recent home buyer Daniel Dougherty of the Northeast pondered the question, "Did you know Fannie Mae bought your mortgage?" His responses probably were typical of those that would come from many other home buyers: He didn't know Fannie Mae bought the mortgage. He wasn't even sure what Fannie Mae is. Dougherty's is one of 1.1 million mortgages, worth about $20.2 billion, bought by Fannie Mae last year from 1,500 lenders in the United States. "I thought the mortgage was owned by Meridian," said Dougherty.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will suspend, from Dec. 19 to Jan. 2, evictions involving foreclosed occupied single family and two- to four-unit properties that had their mortgages. The suspensions will apply only to eviction lockouts related to Freddie- and Fannie-owned properties. During this period, legal and administrative proceedings for evictions may continue, but families living in foreclosed properties will be permitted to remain in their home.    - Alan J. Heavens

The Federal National Mortgage Association reported its 19th straight quarter of record profits yesterday, despite a decline in net interest income. The congressionally chartered company, known as Fannie Mae, said it earned $412.9 million, or $1.51 a share, for the quarter, compared with $350.7 million, or $1.28 a share, in last year's period. Fannie Mae, which packages mortgages and issues them as securities, said it already has done more than $175 billion in total business this year, far surpassing last year's record of $139 billion.

Fannie Mae, the nation's largest source of mortgage financing, has announced a 10-year, $2 trillion commitment to provide housing to 18 million American families. At the same time, Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and CEO, pronounced the congressionally chartered corporation's seven-year, $1 trillion affordable-housing initiative a success. Raines said the goals established for the initiative in 1994 by his predecessor, James A. Johnson, had been reached eight months early.

In the Region PUC approves Peco upgrade plan The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission approved Peco 's long-term infrastructure-improvement plan Thursday, setting the stage for the company to accelerate a pipe-replacement program for its natural-gas utility. Under Peco's plan, the company will increase its projected annual spending to replace aging natural-gas service lines from $14 million to $34 million per year. Peco's system includes about 1,731 miles of iron mains and bare-steel mains and customer-service lines.

FANNIE MAE ASKEW loved to sing the old gospel songs. Songs like "His Eye Is On The Sparrow" and "How Great Thou Art" seemed to take her closer to her spiritual home. Even in her final illness, Fannie was singing the hymns. A daughter of the South, Fannie Mae worked for the Philadelphia School District as a cafeteria helper at Pepper Middle School, and was an active member of Mount Zion Baptist Church for many years. She died Tuesday at age 93. She was living in Newtown Square and had lived previously in Southwest Philadelphia.

The former president of the World Bank has withdrawn as one of Swarthmore College's three 2013 commencement speakers after critical comments sparked a debate in the campus media. Robert Zoellick, a 1975 alumnus, also declined to receive an honorary degree, according to an announcement by Swarthmore's president, Rebecca Chopp. "I don't want to disrupt what should be a special day for the graduates, their families, and friends. Nor do I have an interest in participating in an unnecessarily controversial event," Zoellick said, according to an e-mail Chopp sent to the college community on Friday.

BET Investments of Horsham has purchased the 216-unit garden-style Lincoln Woods Apartments on Germantown Pike in Lafayette Hill for $25.5 million. The 10-year loan for the purchase of the complex, built in 1991, was arranged through Fannie Mae by Berkadia Commercial Mortgage L.L.C. in Horsham. It represented 80 percent of total acquisition costs plus short-term capital budget. BET has acquired 1,000 apartment units in the region in the last six months.

Q: What are "Fannie Mae" and "Freddie Mac," and what do they do? - John G., Petaluma, Calif.   A: Originally known as the Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that support affordable homeownership by making mortgage money available. Instead of lending money, they operate in the secondary market, buying and guaranteeing qualifying mortgages from lenders so those lenders can turn around and lend more money to more borrowers.

WASHINGTON - A government report finds median pay for nearly 2,000 senior managers at government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exceeded $200,000 last year. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees the two mortgage giants, also did an inadequate job monitoring pay, according to the report released Monday from the inspector general for the FHFA. The median figure means that half the managers received salaries above $200,000 and half received less. Those managers represent nearly 17 percent of the roughly 11,900 total employees at the two bailed-out companies.

By Jill Stein When I decided to run for president of the United States, spending the night in a Philadelphia jail cell was not part of my strategy. But I and my running mate on the Green Party ticket, Cheri Honkala, found ourselves in handcuffs this month after we refused to leave the Philadelphia building housing the regional headquarters of the mortgage giant Fannie Mae. We were there to support two women whose families faced unjust evictions by Fannie Mae, as well as the eight million other families who have faced foreclosure at the hands of Wall Street.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are adopting new guidelines to streamline the process for short sales, which most real estate observers expect will outpace foreclosures in the coming year. The guidelines, required by the Federal Housing Finance Agency and effective June 15, would require servicers of mortgages backed by Freddie and Fannie to review and respond to requests for short sales within 30 calendar days of receipt of a buyer's offer. A short sale is a transaction in which a lender agrees to accept less than the amount owed on the mortgage.