Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin suggested in a Senate hearing that Fannie and Freddie may not have enough capital to exit conservatorship before Trump leaves office.
The FHFA has directed the GSEs to extend moratoriums on single-family foreclosures and real estate-owned evictions. The move is likely to cost the two mortgage giants between $1.1 billion and $1.7 billion.
After the 2019 increase, homebuyers with newly eligible loans had an average income twice that of buyers whose loans were still eligible under the 2018 limit.
The Fifth Circuit found FHFA’s structure unconstitutional but decided the remedy was to simply toss the structure and leave the net worth sweep standing. The Supreme Court will now grapple with the two issues.
Though both Fannie and Freddie exceed FHFA’s benchmarks for low-income refis, low-income borrowers actually accounted for a smaller share of the companies’ refis than they did for the market as a whole.
In September, the FSOC endorsed the FHFA’s capital rule, even urging the agency to use tougher, more bank-like standards. What the report didn’t say was how the council reached its conclusions.
If the FHFA wants to release the GSEs from conservatorship before President Trump leaves office, it will need a big assist from Treasury. And therein lies the problem.
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