Sometimes you hear one thing and don’t think much of it, and then you hear another thing that makes the first thing seem much more important.

This morning the Mortgage Bankers Association put out a report from two UCLA researchers (MBA funded the report) saying that the homeownership rate may have bottomed but could still fall another one to two percentage points.

Then JP Morgan’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, [ JPM 40.35  +0.73 (+1.84%) ] suggested that his bank could get out of the mortgage ownership business in the future. “Owning consumer assets may be something we don’t want to do,” Dimon said on the earnings conference call. “It may be we’ll originate, securitize, service, but not own” mortgages. He added that they don’t have to make a decision on the mortgage business until rules are set, which could be eight years.

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A few months ago the Obama administration put out a “white paper” on potential outcomes for the demise of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

There was much debate about it at the time, but since then there’s been something of a calm after the storm.

Republicans made it clear they want government out of the mortgage business, and democrats just the opposite; hence the quiet.

Now comes a bi-partisan bill from a California Republican and a Michigan Democrat, that could be the first to get some real traction.

Rep. John Campbell (R-California) and Rep. Gary Peters (D-Michigan) are looking to keep the government as a backstop to the mortgage market, an a very measured and limited way. Their bill (HR 1859) does away with Fannie and Freddie and replaces them with no fewer than five “government-chartered” entities. These would securitize mortgages, as Fannie and Freddie do, with a government guarantee. To pay for that guarantee, the entities would pay the government a fee, as well as be required to follow certain strict standards of underwriting and loan size. The entities would also have to hold on to far more capital than Fannie and Freddie do.

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