GSEs

Spreads widened on Freddie Mac's latest offering of Structured Agency Credit Risk securities as investors demanded additional compensation for taking on the credit risk of mortgages insured by the company.

The Federal Reserve's interest rate increase has commercial real estate debt and equity financing players even more upbeat about their prospects in 2016.

Consumers became more encouraged by the housing market in December, as they reflected on their higher wages compared to a year earlier, Fannie Mae said.

Forget bigger is better. Several private-equity-backed lenders are making loans to small landlords, who represent the biggest chunk of the home-rental market and get less help from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than they once did.

Mortgage rates rang in the new year by keeping below 4%, according to the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey.

Freddie Mac has formed a partnership with the Lenders One Mortgage co-operative to give its members benefits on pricing and in other areas.

Fannie Mae said that those affected by floods across the Midwest may have access to mortgage assistance.

The demand for affordable rental properties has long outstripped the supply, with the gap widening as incomes have stagnated, homeownership rates have fallen and rents have soared in recent years. But now, banks are finding a profitable path to helping ease this severe national shortage.

As the mortgage industry begins the New Year, National Mortgage News takes a look at the biggest trends and topics that will shape 2016.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is important, but it barely scratches the surface of former House Financial Services Committee Chairman Michael Oxley's impact on banking.