Fannie Mae Eases Credit to Aid Mortgage Lending

[tomtom]

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

 

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

 

 

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260

 

 

[John Frieh]

Mortgage insurance has been discontinued for non owner occupied

properties by the major Mortgage Insurance Companies.

 

85% and 90% conventional loans for non owner occupied/investment

properties are no longer available.

 

:(

[bstach]

Mortgage insurance has been discontinued for non owner occupied

properties by the major Mortgage Insurance Companies.

 

85% and 90% conventional loans for non owner occupied/investment

properties are no longer available.

 

:(

OMG!! You have to put 20% down on your investment property!!!

 

Its going to get tighter yet. If you are a real estate investor, get your financing pre-approved NOW...and *in writing*

[tomtom]

Capitol Hill bore down on Mr. Mudd as well. The same year he took the top position, regulators sharply increased Fannie’s affordable-housing goals. Democratic lawmakers demanded that the company buy more loans that had been made to low-income and minority homebuyers.

 

“When homes are doubling in price in every six years and incomes are increasing by a mere one percent per year, Fannie’s mission is of paramount importance,” Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, lectured Mr. Mudd at a Congressional hearing in 2006. “In fact, Fannie and Freddie can do more, a lot more.”

 

 

Had Fannie been a private entity, its comeuppance might have happened a year ago [2007]. But the White House, Wall Street and Capitol Hill were more concerned about the trillions of dollars in other loans that were poisoning financial institutions and banks.

 

Lawmakers, particularly Democrats, leaned on Fannie and Freddie to buy and hold those troubled debts, hoping that removing them from the system would help the economy recover. The companies, eager to regain market share and buy what they thought were undervalued loans, rushed to comply.

 

The White House also pitched in. James B. Lockhart, the chief regulator of Fannie and Freddie, adjusted the companies’ lending standards so they could purchase as much as $40 billion in new subprime loans. Some in Congress praised the move.

 

“I’m not worried about Fannie and Freddie’s health, I’m worried that they won’t do enough to help out the economy,” the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, said at the time. “That’s why I’ve supported them all these years — so that they can help at a time like this.”

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/business/05fannie.html?pagewanted=3&em