By automating its biennial review system, the FHLBank regulator has dramatically reduced the number of member institutions that are inadvertently omitted from community support reporting.
"What Fannie and Freddie and the FHFA should be doing is trying to convince Congress it’s time to get them out of conservatorship," said James Lockhart, the former director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
All lender types, except HFAs and credit unions, saw GSE deliveries decline in the fourth quarter. For HFAs, that meant a spike in market share, albeit from a low starting point. (Includes two data tables.)
The former FHFA director says Congress will never act, but that the GSEs should create subsidiaries, then complete an initial public offering to get out of government control.
Small depositories warn changes at the FHLBs could increase members’ costs and reduce access to FHLB funding. Worse, these changes could take place without formal rulemaking.
Thousands of stakeholders responded to FHFA’s RFI on the prospect of the GSEs establishing tenant protections for the multifamily properties they back. Most respondents were tenants.