Fannie Mae, Real Estate | featured news

The U.S. regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac accuses the banks of negligence in misrepresenting the risks embedded in the securities sold to the home-finance giants.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Bank of America has agreed to sell a portion of its home loan portfolio to Fannie Mae. The Journal said the deal to sell a pool of 400,000 loans to the government-sponsored mortgage holder was finalized last Friday.

That figure, projected through 2013, represents a worst-case scenario that assumes a double-dip recession, the Federal Housing Finance Agency says. The finance giants have so far received about $148 billion in taxpayer funds.

Federal Housing Finance Agency is seeking billions in repayment from banks that sold bad loans to the mortgage giants to help offset taxpayer losses, but some financial institutions are balking.

The U.S. government's role in housing finance should undergo "fundamental change," but it should still provide some guarantees in the mortgage market, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday.

US home loan giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are to cease trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).