GSEs

Most homeowners have neither the capital nor the credit to self-finance an ADU or get a loan to build one. If financing doesn’t change, ADUs will stay niche and expensive.

“I am so excited that Fannie decided to do this … For the first time, there has been recognition by a capital funder that the services that are provided matter.”

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are under a congressional mandate to improve investment in three specific kinds of housing markets—but Congress didn’t say by how much, and advocates say they could be doing far more.

When predatory equity investors take a gamble on multifamily housing, it’s the tenants who suffer — whether from harassment or crumbling buildings. Advocates and tenants in New York have won the fight to get some of these buildings into responsible hands, but many are still in limbo, and some are reentering the cycle of speculation.

The functions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — liquidity, stability, and access — remain important for the housing economy. Indeed, the two companies today are providing more than 70 percent of all the financing for housing even while under conservatorship. But their collapse into the federal government’s arms is causing a wholesale reevaluation of how best to provide those functions in the future.

  Owning a home is the American Dream. But who can really buy the dream of homeownership and why? After almost 20 years of the Community Reinvestment Act and anti-redlining […]