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Sixth Semiannual Report to the Congress - Federal Housing ...
Sixth Semiannual Report to the Congress - Federal Housing ...
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in quarterly dividend payments does not reduce the<br />
outstanding balance of Treasury’s investment.<br />
Additionally, over the last six months, FHFA and the<br />
enterprises made significant progress in their efforts<br />
to develop a common securitization infrastructure for<br />
residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS); the<br />
agency released reports from the enterprises assessing<br />
the viability of their multifamily lending businesses<br />
in the absence of a government guarantee; Freddie<br />
Mac—in compliance with FHFA’s directive to test<br />
credit risk sharing transactions—made the first in a<br />
series of bond offerings that are not guaranteed by<br />
the enterprise; and lawmakers introduced two major<br />
bills intended to reform housing finance and the<br />
Administration announced core principles that it<br />
believes should underlie such reform. These and other<br />
developments and OIG’s efforts in relation to them<br />
are summarized in Section 2.<br />
Section 3: Lessons for Housing<br />
Finance Reform: Five Years<br />
After the Federal Government’s<br />
Takeover of Fannie Mae and<br />
Freddie Mac<br />
a multi-trillion-dollar industry? As policymakers<br />
debate these and other issues, we offer, in Section 3,<br />
a discussion of three factors that are important to a<br />
safe, stable, and liquid mortgage market—whatever<br />
its ultimate structure.<br />
First, soundness. The recent housing crisis has shown<br />
that, at minimum, the secondary mortgage market<br />
needs quality underwriting, robust risk assessment,<br />
and market-aligned servicing. Second, oversight. Our<br />
work demonstrates that effective housing finance<br />
oversight requires well-equipped regulators to verify<br />
decision making and enforce compliance. Third,<br />
balance. Whatever the future mortgage market’s<br />
structure, participants will have to balance between<br />
interrelated laws, roles, and practices.<br />
Section 3 draws on our experience and is not<br />
intended to take sides. Rather it is intended to<br />
provide our stakeholders with information that<br />
will be useful during the debate on housing finance<br />
reform.<br />
It is no longer a question of if the nation’s housing<br />
finance system will be reformed, but how. Will<br />
the government continue to play a role, or will it<br />
exit the secondary mortgage market entirely? How<br />
will the government reduce its huge footprint in<br />
4 Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of Inspector General