WASHINGTON—The Federal Housing Finance Agency last week cited building a new single-family securitization infrastructure as one of its 2017 goals for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Common- Securitization Solutions, the limited-liability company developing the necessary technology to issue single securities.
The other two goals noted in the FHFA’s 2017 scorecard include reducing taxpayer risk and maintaining credit availability and foreclosure prevention activities for new and refinanced mortgages, reported NAFCU in its analysis.
NAFCU said, more specifically, the FHFA expects the government-sponsored enterprises to, among other things:
- Work to increase access to single-family mortgage credit for creditworthy borrowers, including the underserved segments of the market;
- Finalize post-crisis loss mitigation activities; and
- Assess the current mortgage servicing business model.
“Regarding the single-security platform, the GSEs are to focus on the functions necessary for current single-family securitization activities and allow for the integration of additional market participants in the future. The FHFA recently announced that the first part of its Common Securitization Platform was successfully implemented in November,” explained NAFCU.
NAFCU said it has previously lodged concerns about this platform possibly making it more difficult for credit unions to sell their loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin and leaders on Capitol Hill have indicated that GSE reform will be a priority next year. NAFCU said it continues to advocate for housing reform that guarantees access for credit unions to the secondary mortgage market, and fair prices based on loan quality rather than volume.