The statute requires the GSEs to serve three specific underserved markets: manufactured housing, affordable housing preservation, and rural housing by increasing secondary market liquidity...
Freddie Mac decided to dip its toes into the single- family rental market with a $161 million transaction with CoreVest Finance. The securities are backed by affordable single-family rental properties targeting low-income and working families. The SR01 certificates include 59 loans originated primarily by CoreVest. Freddie has been exploring the growing SFR market for the better part of the year. While Fannie Mae received some backlash for its one large $1 billion transaction earlier this year with Invitation Homes, Freddie’s focus was on the affordable housing market. Most of the 2,355 properties included in this transaction (94 percent) are affordable to families earning less than 100 percent of the area median income.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be barred from making contributions to the Housing Trust Fund if Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt decides to forgo sending dividend payments to the Treasury under a bill approved this week by the House Financial Services Committee. The GSE Jumpstart Reauthorization Act of 2017 (H.R. 4560) would also extend an existing prohibition on the Treasury Department from selling its shares in the GSEs without congressional approval. That ban, currently due to sunset at the end of this month, would be extended to Dec. 31, 2018.The bill, introduced on Dec. 6 by Rep. French Hill, R-AR, would suspend Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...
Resolving the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac conservatorship dilemma got a significant boost last week when House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-TX, said he’s open to negotiations on housing-finance reform. During a speech at a National Association of Realtors conference, Hensarling expressed support for a bipartisan approach while outlining his beliefs for a sustained housing-finance reform plan. This represents the first time that the lawmaker publicly said he’s ready to make a deal when it comes to reform. And that includes changing his tune on opposing any type of government guarantee for mortgage-backed securities backed by conventional home loans.
As the Federal Housing Finance Agency works to prepare the industry for the single security and common securitization platform, officials are keeping a close eye on consistency in prepayment speeds between Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The single security and CSP are on target for implementation in 2019, according to a new FHFA progress update released in December. In that report, the FHFA described in more detail the processes it has in place to minimize variance in prepayment speeds between Fannie and Freddie mortgage-backed securities that have the same coupon, maturity and issuance cohort.