Fannie Mae filed a $2 billion civil complaint Dec. 12 against its former outside auditor, KPMG LLP, accusing the firm of negligence and breach of contract.The congressionally chartered mortgage giant says because of KPMG's actions, it suffered more than $2 billion in damages and had to pay more than $1 billion (and counting) to restate its books. (Fannie Mae recently restated prior years' earnings downward by $6.3 billion.) Fannie's accounting scandal broke wide open in 2004 and resulted in the ouster of its former chairman and chief executive Franklin Raines and chief financial officer Timothy Howard. Investigators later found that the company violated a host of accounting rules involving hedging, amortization and other matters. The government-sponsored enterprise charges that KPMG's "repeated assurances" to its audit committee "have proven to be dramatically wrong," noting that it has been forced to restate financials to correct more than 30 accounting errors that the firm missed or "affirmatively approved." At deadline time, KPMG had not yet commented on the lawsuit.
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The increasing frequency and severity of droughts was top of mind for panelists at AmeriCatalyst's "Going to Extremes" conference Thursday.
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In a Senate hearing, Director Sandra Thompson said a raise to the required income threshold provided to affordable housing was on the table, while housing regulators also faced questions related to property insurance hikes and title insurance waivers.
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The nonpayment rate for non-qualified mortgages is up 21 basis points from February and 134 basis points from March 2023, Morningstar DBRS said.
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The government mortgage-bond guarantor will require additional information on foreclosure prevention actions, and retire some forbearance reporting.
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But views are split, at least in the near-term on whether rising mortgage rates are holding back the Spring home purchase season.
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The top five producers had an average dollar volume of FHA loans of more than $50 million in 2023.
April 18