Fannie Mae foreclosures are fueling losses and costing the government billions, but Congress, afraid to make the housing market worse, is avoiding the issue. Flickr photo.
Fannie Mae foreclosures are swamping the nation’s largest mortgage buyer. Fannie Mae reported an $11.5 billion loss in the first quarter of 2010. Fannie Mae stock has been in freefall. Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae’s little brother, lost more than $6.7 billion. Monday, Fannie Mae asked the U.S. Treasury for an infusion of $8.4 billion. Together, Fannie and Freddie say they need about $20 billion to stay afloat.
Fannie and Freddie: the only game in town
Politicians on both sides of the congressional aisle are eager to score points by threatening to quit giving money to Fannie and Freddie. The problem is that Fannie and Freddie are often the only loan company in town, since the market for mortgage securities froze up in 2008. Fannie Mae foreclosures are steadily increasing, so nobody in Congress has the guts right now to do anything that could further weaken the housing market.
Fannie and Freddie: politics as usual
Politicians have been avoiding action on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, even though the Senate passed an amendment Wednesday placing stricter rules on writing loans. Politico reports that the Senate failed to pass a provision on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Tuesday night. Republicans and Democrats can’t agree about language dealing with loans and who should be responsible for overseeing regulations. Democrats want a newly created consumer protection agency to regulate the loans. Republicans whipped out the big government card, saying that the consumer protection agency would have too much power.
Fannie and Freddie go deep
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac behaved like any other bank during the housing bubble. The greedy siblings collected $3.9 trillion from investors who bought bundles of mortgages they assembled. Fannie Mae stock soared, for awhile. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are publicly traded companies, but when they got in too deep, investors lost confidence. Fannie and Freddy threatened to collapse–bring down the nation’s housing market with them. To avert catastrophe, the federal government was forced to take over Fannie and Freddie in 2008.
Fannie Mae stock
To date, the U.S. Treasury has thrown more than $145 billion into the Fannie/Freddie rabbit hole. Medill Chigago reports that meanwhile Fannie Mae reported a quarterly loss of $11.53 billion, or $2.29 per diluted share of Fannie Mae stock, which is good news considering that losses were $23.2 billion and $4.09 a share the year before. Analysts had estimated a loss of $1.75 per share. Monday’s report marked the 11th consecutive quarterly loss.
On Tuesday, Fannie Mae’s shares traded at about $1.05. Two years ago, shares prices sat at about $26.30. And, for much of the last decade, shares fluctuated between $65 and $80. The stock closed down 0.94 percent at $1.05 on Tuesday.
Fannie and Freddie’s dilemma
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are hemorrhaging money because they own or guarantee more than 50 percent of mortgages in the U.S. The New York Times reports that details about losses at Freddie Mac paint a scary picture of the current housing market. Freddie Mac foreclosures rose from 29,145 properties at the end of March 2009 to almost 54,000 units in 2010. Freddie’s nonperforming assets almost doubled, rising to $115 billion from $62 billion. Freddie Mac foreclosures lose about 39 percent on average when they sell.
Freddie Mac delinquencies
Freddie Mac is also plagued by delinquencies, according to the New York Times. Mortgage payments more than 90 days late in Freddie’s single-family conventional loan portfolio are 4.13 percent, up from 2.41 percent for the period a year earlier. Delinquencies in Freddie’s Alt-A book, one step up from subprime loans, totaled 12.84 percent. Delinquencies on interest-only mortgages were 18.5 percent. Delinquencies on option-adjustable rate loans totaled 19.8 percent.
Fannie and Freddie: indefinite, infinite losses
Fannie Mae was created during The Great Depression to make sure that sufficient funds were available to mortgage lenders, then rechartered by Congress in 1968 as a publicly traded company. Freddie was created for the same reason in 1970. Today, both companies are caught between a rock and a hard place. When the housing market tanked, Fannie and Freddie began losing billions. But the mortgage meltdown also made the nation’s housing market totally dependent on them. Fannie and Freddie exist to support the mortgage market by buying loans from banks and other lenders. At the same time, they must work to minimize credit losses so the billions that taxpayers have thrown at them don’t vaporize.
idk why they didnt offer cash for keys as they did for me…but with all kinds of stipulations and another party is involved(ORLANS ASSOCIATES]i believe they are a debt collector,they are basically telling me i surrender any rights and can sue for any debts etc…theres about 10 sheets to read regarding their cash for keys/relocation assistance program.it sounds like a setup to be sued,with all the attached stipulations and agreements they want.it even says a copy of this STIPULATION AND AGREEMENT may be filed with the court without further notice.someone please help me with any info regarding.im new to this,their offering up to 3000 to vacate but seems if i agree their could be very harsh consequences.PLEASE HELP,I NEED THE MONEY BUT IF ITS GOING TO COST ME IN THE END ITS NOT WORTH GETTING SUED
There is no need for so many foreclosures. Homeowners are not receiving any other options because lenders refuse to consider assisting home owners to keep their homes. Many people would jump at the opportunity to find employment in creating newly formed consumer protection agencies. Foreclosures need to stop. There are options to assist families to keep our homes, we are not being offered options. Fannie Mae is aware that their loans are not being serviced properly.truth is…Fannie Mae does not care that Americans are going homeless!
I agree with Nancy. Homeowners aren't receiving options. I began falling behind on my mortgage early last year, as I am self-employed and business deteriorated at a rapid rate.
Once the loan became 3 months overdue, I desperately tried getting the bank to modify the loan. The bank kept sending paperwork, which I kept filling out. The filled out paperwork never seemed to be enough. They kept putting off the auction date in giving false hopes they would modify the loan. Then Fannie Mae being the guarantor of the loan pushed for the auction date on June 2nd of this year (which never sold), instead of helping us stay in the home. They would rather kick a family out on the streets and board up the house than simply modify the loan to an affordable amount and start receiving mortgage payments again.
I thought they were supposed to be helping people. We just got a 72 hr notice to vacate the premsises. What am I supposed to do now? I have nowhere to go and I know I'm headed for my vehicle. It doesn't make sense that another home will be empty.
Rick, Fannie Mae and FM were NOT private corporations. They were quasi-government entities, a sort of hybrid, where their stock was indeed in private hands, but the government was always in the background because of the legislation that created them. Indeed, the appeal to investing in them was that everyone knew that if they ever got in trouble they were going to be backed by the government, which indeed happened. Plus, they were run by political hacks. So, these entities were the worst kind of corporations, government backed, government run, and only private if they succeeded. They should never have been created, and many people said so when they were. So your greed theory may apply here, but only to the politicians and their hacks who ran the company into the ground, with the great help and push of Congress who used these companies to push housing to people who couldn't afford them in the first place, "because everyone deserves a house of their own." No they don't. Only if they are responsible enough to save for the down payment and buy what they can afford.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were private corporations in case you didn't know.
Apparently privatization wasn't the solution and now they're back in government hands, the taxpayer now has to fix the broken system that privatized greed and corruption created.