Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard professor, consumer advocate and candidate for US Senate in Masachusetts, said today that the Federal Housing Finance Agence (FHFA) must increase their actions on behalf of homeowners, including principal reductions, something that the agency has resisted to this point. Speaking along side Barney Frank, Mike Capuano and MA AG Martha Coakley, Warren’s message was aimed straight at FHFA’s Ed DeMarco, who’s been stalling on principal writedowns.

Shaun Donovan, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, made some news today at the US Conference of Mayors, by saying that a foreclosure fraud settlement was imminent and that it would include principal write-downs for up to one million borrowers.

There’s wide agreement President Obama will likely have to make more recess appointments if he wants to staff key positions, including the newly-created vacancy at the Office of Management and Budget, as Jack Lew has become White House Chief of Staff. The assumption here is that Republicans will react to recess appointments at the CFPB and the NLRB by refusing to confirm any other Presidential appointee. Now California Dems want a recess appointment for the FHFA.

As other Attorneys General took the lead in efforts to fight foreclosure fraud, with lawsuits from Delaware’s Beau Biden, Massachusetts’ Martha Coakley and Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto, we hadn’t heard as much from New York’s Eric Schneiderman lately. But he’s back in the news, teaming with the federal Inspector General for the FHFA on an investigation.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris has been awfully quiet amid pressure from the Obama Administration to agree to a settlement with the big banks over foreclosure fraud. So it’s interesting that she popped up this week to call for the resignation of Ed DeMarco, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Pending home sales fell again in September, yet another of the bad signals coming out of a broken housing market, one of the biggest challenges for economic growth. Residential investment as a share of GDP is now shockingly low, below any point in the past 60 years.

The Obama administration’s new proposals to help struggling home owners avoid foreclosure will help some, but they’re too limited. Here are some ideas that would accomplish a lot more.

The President statement yesterday in Las Vegas on the Administration’s new refinancing initiative was circumspect about their claims. There’s a debate now about how effective and far reaching this will be, with some arguing it could have a significant economic effect, and others far more skeptical.

The White House will announce that millions more underwater homeowners can take advantage of a refinancing program if their loan is owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. This is a plan the President announced as part of his American Jobs Act speech It will open up the Home Affordable Refinancing Program to everyone who’s current on their loan, regardless of how far underwater they are.

The real bombshell of the past 24 hours in housing was the report of the FHFA Inspector General, the second in two weeks damning the conduct of the GSEs In this case, Fannie Mae was found to have known about foreclosure fraud, including serial fabrications of foreclosure documents and robo-signing, as far back as 2003.