President Bush is expected to appoint James B. Lockhart III as acting director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, which supervises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to sources.Mr. Lockhart is currently the second-ranking official at the Social Security Administration, and the White House wants him to take over OFHEO immediately and replace acting director Steven Blumenthal. The timing may be important because OFHEO is expected to release its long-awaited report on Fannie's $10.8 billion accounting scandal soon. Recent news reports indicate that OFHEO may release a report in a few weeks, but an OFHEO spokeswoman declined to specify a timeframe when asked by MortgageWire. Mr. Lockhart was a co-founder and managing director of NetRisk, a risk management software firm, before joining the SSA. During his career, he was a senior vice president at Nation Re (1996) and a managing director at Smith Barney (1993-95).
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The latest government-sponsored enterprise changes include a more flexible sampling and a longer maximum term for some manufactured housing loans, respectively.
April 6 -
The product preserves borrower's first mortgage, and its potentially lower mortgage rate, without requiring the new monthly payments of a traditional HELOC, FOA says.
April 6 -
The White House's proposed 2027 budget would slash funding to the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, the latest in an ongoing campaign from the Trump administration to dismantle the politically popular program.
April 6 -
Mortgage rates rising nearly 40 basis points from early-year lows have pushed some buyers out of the market, even as inventory and affordability remain better than a year ago, ICE Mortgage Technology found.
April 6 -
Lawsuits and probes are ramping up, and some courts have broadened the lending law's statute of limitations, said Bradley Partner Jonathan Kolodziej.
April 6 -
New jobs in health care largely drove the gains, while the federal workforce and finance continued to shrink.
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