Company
Government-sponsored enterprise that buys and guarantees mortgage loans from lenders, setting conforming-loan standards for the US housing market.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac grew multifamily loans 8.2% in the year to the second quarter, nearly triple the 2.9% pace of banks' commercial real estate books. That growth is apartment debt, so Wolf Street's figures do not show office losses from the low-rate years moving to taxpayers.
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FICO will cut about 15% of its staff, roughly 570 jobs, and book $27 million in charges, mostly severance, to fold AI into its products. The cut comes weeks after housing regulators moved to loosen FICO's grip on mortgage scoring, and the timing makes it as much a cost defence as an AI story.
Reality
Freddie Mac has made capital-markets head John Glessner its chief risk officer as well, at no extra pay, after Anil Hinduja left the job. The role oversees the push to price VantageScore 4.0 loans like FICO loans, now about 5% of new GSE deliveries.
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TIAA's survey finds 51% of Gen Z believe AI threatens their ability to save for retirement, 11 points above the national average. Most of that fear is about pay, and sponsors cannot yet see whether it lifts contributions or goes into rainy-day funds.
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The bank's researchers say the scores Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac generate inside automated underwriting predict 90-plus-day delinquency at 24 months better than the measures pulled at application. Investors mostly see them in securities disclosures.
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Wolf Richter counts 34 bigger markets where mid-tier condo prices sit 15% to 34% below peaks mostly set in mid-2022, and six that are back under their 2006 highs. In San Francisco, houses are re-exploding while condos stay 7% under peak.
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William Pulte directed Fannie Mae to copy Freddie Mac and let servicers phone borrowers whose homes have appreciated. KBW's Bose George expects modest uptake and says the released capital goes to buybacks.
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Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase are sponsoring home-equity securitizations filled partly with loans from nonbank channels. The capital rule that makes those deals attractive to a bank is not final. Nonbank sponsors are left competing on cost per deal.
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Jay Hawkinson, writing for the Forbes Tech Council, says his pre-deal AI governance reviews keep turning up models with no named decision owner, and he puts figures on what changed once companies assigned one.
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A 6.71% mortgage sits 1.97 points above the 10-year Treasury, the same gap as before January's buyback fanfare, which means a 6% handle now needs a 4.03% ten-year that the market has not offered since mid-2023.
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The final rule's treatment of private mortgage insurance sets the risk weight on a segment that is 40% of purchase originations. The relief case compares net severity against gross.
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A closed-end fund distributed $1.74bn over eight fiscal years while earning about a third of it, covering the gap by issuing shares above NAV. The premium is now a discount.
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Mid-tier condo prices are down 15% to 33% from peak in 33 bigger US markets, and in six the index is back under 2006. That is a collateral question, not a housing headline.
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The 30-year fixed rate slipped two basis points to 6.65%, its second straight weekly decline. It is still seven basis points above where it sat a year ago.
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