The House Financial Services chair is sponsoring a bill with one of the Democratic presidential contenders aimed at alleviating the public housing capital backlog.
There's been chatter that investors are shying away from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities because Congress may not enact housing finance reform. Be skeptical of those claims.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s exemption from the Qualified Mortgage rule is on borrowed time, but a House bill would allow lenders to use the mortgage giants’ guidelines for documenting borrower income.
Recent Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac activities are “not the kind of day-to-day behavior that you would expect from companies” under federal control, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency said.
The regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac discussed steps the companies have already taken to limit their risk, as well as efforts to prevent housing market “overlap” with the FHA.
At a House hearing covering a whole host of housing finance reform topics, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's regulator said "if the circumstances" call for eliminating investors, "we will."
