Fannie Mae

HUD and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) entered a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to enhance their enforcement of the Fair Housing Act. The MOU allows HUD and FHFA to enforce fair housing and fair lending requirements by promoting information sharing, coordination on investigations, compliance reviews and the ongoing monitoring of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fannie Mae announced that it is offering Sponsor-Initiated Affordability (SIA) incentives for multifamily borrowers, with the aim of preserving naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH) and workforce housing. Property owners seeking Fannie Mae financing will be encouraged for rent and income restrictions for residents living in conventional workforce housing.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will offer COVID-19 forbearance to qualifying multifamily property owners through June 30.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced the authorization of more than $1 billion in affordable housing allocations to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest disbursement in history. HUD’s National Housing Trust Fund (NHTF) will receive $711 million and the Department of the Treasury’s Capital Magnet Fund (CMF) will receive $383 million.

Enterprise Community Partners (Enterprise), HUD, Fannie Mae, and Bellwether Enterprise are holding a webinar from 1:30 – 3 p.m. ET on December 10 to discuss their new Ready to Respond: Business Continuity Toolkit. The toolkit equips multifamily affordable building owners & managers with a plan to address crisis as many housing communities confront risks associated with natural disasters and other risks that affect tenants and business resiliency, such as COVID-19.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced that the 2021 multifamily loan purchase caps for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) will be $70 billion for each Enterprise. NH&RA applauds the increased caps and looking forward to working with FHFA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to ensure sufficient liquidity in the multifamily mortgage market during this economic downturn.

Don Layton authored a new paper with Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, What Should We Do with the GSEs? Common-Sense Reform Recommendations for the Biden Administration. Layton concludes that the new administration, if it is to successfully address the GSE question, must follow one of two possible paths in the next twelve to twenty-four months.

FHFA determined the Enterprises’ purchases of mortgages exceeded the benchmarks for all the 2019 housing goals. The report also concluded both Enterprises complied with their 2019 Duty-to-Serve requirements in all three underserved markets.

A new blog and paper by Don Layton with the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University explore whether the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) plans and actions are consistent with making the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (collectively, the Government Sponsored Enterprises or GSEs) attractive enough to equity investors, and – given the need to raise such unprecedentedly large amounts of equity – to do so globally and broadly.

The House Committee on Financial Services will hold a virtual roundtable at 3:00 pm ET on September 3 on Dismantling Barriers to Housing for America’s Seniors and People with Disabilities.

Jeff Hayward is leaving his post as head of Multifamily at Fannie Mae to assume a new enterprise-wide role as chief administrative officer, Michele Evans will take over as head of Multifamily.

Reps. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Wm. Lacy Clay (D-MO) and Denny Heck (D-WA), sent a letter to Dr. Mark Calabria, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), urging the agency to prioritize economic recovery amid the COVID-19 pandemic crisis by pausing a rulemaking that would set new capital requirements for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (collectively “the Enterprises”) until after the pandemic.