President Obama nominated Representative Mel Watt (D–NC) as new chief regulator to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), replacing the current acting director Edward DeMarco. Watt has strong support from liberals in both the House and the Senate as a longtime member of the House Financial Services Committee and advocate …
What would the potential impact on the economy be if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—the housing finance government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs)—were eliminated? Our research indicates that winding down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from the mortgage market would have a minimal and predictable effect on the economy. Since 2008, Fannie Mae …
Ed DeMarco, the acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), got it right by putting taxpayers’ interests ahead of the Obama Administration’s wishes. DeMarco, whose agency controls Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, says that the anticipated benefits of reducing loan amounts of underwater mortgages “do not outweigh the …
To hear certain parts of the press tell it, the acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Ed DeMarco, announced that the agency is willing to consider wholesale write-downs of underwater mortgages in a recent speech on the subject. However, a closer reading of DeMarco’s speech and the …
