Fannie Mae has collected nearly $14 billion from eight mortgage lenders since the start of 2013 for repurchase claims, and just agreed to $591 million from Wells Fargo, which will mark the end of its efforts to collect on defective loans it bought from private lenders during the the peak of the housing boom, according to nationalmortgagenews.com. In a statement Wells said the settlement “resolves substantially all repurchase liabilities related to loans sold to Fannie Mae that were originated prior to Jan. 1, 2009.” Wells acquisition of Wachovia brought in the majority of the bad loans, MHProNews.com has learned.
Timothy Mayopoulos, the GSEs’ president and chief executive, said, “This agreement represents a fitting conclusion to our year of hard work to put legacy issues in the rear view mirror and begin 2014 focused on improving the future of housing finance.” Bank of America (BOA), with the most repurchase issues, largely due to its purchasing Countrywide Financial in 2008, settled for $10.3 billion on 941,000 loans. BOA also bought back 30,000 loans and paid $1.3 billion for servicing obligations to the mortgage backer.
