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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

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