New goals for annual apartment financing activity at the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. have been more steeply raised that at its secondary rival.
In the single-family home-purchase sector, low-income transactions are expected to account for 24 percent each of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s activity from 2015 through 2017.
For just single-family very low-income home purchases, the sub-goal is six percent for the three-year period.
The goals, which become effective 30 days following publication in the Federal Register, were outlined in a final rule announced Wednesday
by the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Adoption of the final rule reportedly followed more than 144 public comments.
FHFA is required by the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992, as amended by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008,
to establish annual housing goals for mortgages purchased by Fannie and Freddie.
The regulator, which also serves as conservator for both entities, disclosed a 21 percent low-income refinance goal, down significantly from the 27 percent in the proposed rule.
The purchase financing sub-goal for single-family low-income areas was set at 14 percent.
The final rule has the multifamily low-income gold for each GSE at 300,000 units per year for each year from 2015 through 2017.
An increase from what was originally proposed was disproportionately more at Freddie, where the new goal was up by 240,000 from the original proposal and by 100,000 from the 2014 benchmark.
At Fannie, however, the increase from the original proposal was just 150,000, while the expansion versus Fannie’s 2014 goal was only 50,000.
A multifamily housing sub-goal of 60,000 units is set for very low-income units.
A new low-income housing subgoal for Fannie is
6,000 units in 2015, 8,000 units in 2016 and 10,000 units in 2017.
At Freddie, the goal is exactly the same.
