Critiquing the Federal Housing Finance Agency's Policy on Loan Put-Backs

Laurie Goodman and Jun Zhu explain the complicated but critical controversy over the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) recent policy for sunsets on loan put-backs. At stake: the ongoing constraints on lending in the United States.

1 minute read

October 14, 2014, 5:00 AM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Laurie Goodman and Jun Zhu take issue with a report released in September by the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Inspector General (OIG). The report was critical of a policy enacted in January, 2013, under Acting Director Ed DeMarco, to offer a "sunset" from loan put-backs for lenders with loans in certain situations.

The sunset policy was put in place to help "expand the credit box," according to Goodman and Zhu. But "[the] OIG found the January 2013 implementation of a set of sunset provisions to be flawed." Namely, "that the risks of the 36-month sunset were not sufficiently analyzed, and that the GSEs [Government Sponsored Enterprise, i.e., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] adopted the revised standards before putting the needed risk assessment tools in place."

Goodman and Zhu, however, argue that the OIG's report was incomplete in its analysis: "Our analysis of recent, more tailored data, however, reveals that the OIG’s analysis of this sensitive issue is incomplete and overstates the risks of the plan."

Monday, October 6, 2014 in Housing Wire

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