OREGON REAL ESTATE ROUND TABLE

Tag: Freddie Mac

  • The Future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be decided August 17th, by Jim Kim, FierceFinance


    The most glaring omission from the Dodd-Frank financial reform act is without a doubt the lack of a plan for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The government-sponsored enterprises remain encumbered with billions in toxic loans, and unfortunately, the movement to fix these institutions has been stuck on the back burner–until now. The Treasury Department has announced it will hold a conference on the future of Fannie and Freddie on Aug. 17. A Congressional hearing will be held in September.

    The administration seems bent on offering a concrete proposal in January, which is welcome news, as the travails of these entities are costing taxpayers a lot of money. So far the tab stands at $145.9 billion; it will likely end up topping $380 billion–which would make it by far the most expensive bailout effort to date.

    What sort of solutions will be discussed? I doubt anyone will argue that having some sort of body that guarantees mortgages and sells them for securitization is a bad thing. The key will be to somehow retain the salutary effects of this process, which can lower costs, expand the ability of lenders to make home loans, and protect lenders from rate shocks.

    Taking the long view, the rise of securitization has been a welcome development. The real estate crash has revealed that there’s a down side if you let securitization run amok. One theory, as noted by the New York Times, is that this process has led to lax lending. “If mortgage issuers passed along the default risk to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae or to the buyers of mortgage-backed securities, those issuers would have little incentive to screen borrowers properly. While issuers often do have some skin in the game, the enormous amount of both securitization and sloppy lending during the boom made it natural to link the two phenomena.” Indeed, defenders of Fannie and Freddie have long argued that they were pressured to start guaranteeing non-prime loans, to expand the homeownership pie. On top of all of this, securitization has made it harder for loans to be worked out. These are certainly reasonable theories.

    The bottom line is that securitization of mortgage loans based on a sound lending standard is a good idea. But how best to do that? Perhaps the biggest issue is whether the government has a role in subsidizing this effort. And if so, what exactly is that role? What are your ideas?

    FierceFinance
    http://www.fiercefinance.com/story/future-fannie-mae-freddie-mac-be-decided-aug-17/2010-07-29?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

  • Colonial’s failure could make mortgages more scarce, CNN Money


    The collapse of Colonial BancGroup poses another hazard to the still-shaky housing market: Mortgages could become even harder to get.

    The Southern regional bank, based in Montgomery, Ala., was the largest remaining player in warehouse lending, which provides short-term financing to independent mortgage bankers. At one time, these mortgage bankers originated half of all U.S. home loans using these funds.

    Today, the warehouse lending market is decimated. In 2007 it was worth an estimated $200 billion; now there is just $25 billion available — 25% of which belongs to Colonial. With Colonial’s failure, those funds could become even more scarce.

    “It’s like if they shut down half the concession stands at the baseball game,” said Scott Stern, CEO of the Lenders One mortgage bankers group in St. Louis. “It means the guy who’s last in line is going to have to wait a lot longer to get a hot dog, and in this market who knows what the price is going to be when he gets there?”

    The money began drying up when investors started shunning mortgages not guaranteed by government-backed agencies such as Fannie Mae. These loans, made by the independent mortgage bankers, had become closely associated with the worst excesses of the housing bubble.

    Among the biggest players in the market were Countrywide, rescued last year by Bank of America, and Washington Mutual, which collapsed last September. This year, two other prominent lenders had to unwind their warehouse business: National City, the troubled Cleveland bank acquired last fall by PNC; and Guaranty Bank, the Texas thrift that warned last month that it expects to be taken over by regulators.

    To be sure, everyone isn’t fleeing the market. ResCap, a troubled home lender owned by the government-supported GMAC finance company, said earlier this year that it would expand its warehouse lending business. Citi said this month it expects to put $2 billion into warehouse lines this year.

    But with small banks failing and pulling back and many larger players, such as JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, not aggressively pursuing new business, few expect the new entries to reopen the market.

    Thus the industry is lobbying Washington to give government-backed Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae a bigger role in warehouse lending.

    But with those entities already backing some 90% of current U.S. mortgage originations — and taxpayers on the hook for potentially hundreds of billions of dollars of losses at Fannie and Freddie — that idea is proving a hard sell.

    Still, mortgage bankers are hoping the latest tremors in the banking industry will make Washington more receptive.

    “We’re trying to show people how important this is, but I’m not sure the urgency is there,” said Glen Corso, a longtime mortgage industry executive who now heads the Warehouse Lending Project that’s advocating an expanded federal role. “We’d like to see a private solution, obviously, but failing that we need to get something in place to keep financing flowing.”