WASHINGTON, DC-The government has proposed sunsetting the GSEs at some point. Congress has been sharpening its knives for the task and Wall Street institutions and mortgage REITs have been lining up for the pickings.
One group definitely not happy about the prospect of reform are the lenders that regularly tap the GSE market for deals. The general consensus voiced by panel participants at the National Housing Conference’s policy summit on mortgage finance reform, held Friday, is that the government is poised to tinker with one of the few Washington programs that actually works. “The agencies are as competitive as any private sector institution,” said Willy Walker, chairman, president and CEO of Walker & Dunlop. “There are 25 competitors in the [Fannie Mae’s] DUS program that beat the heck out of each other every day,” besides taking a first loss position in any deal. Furthermore, he pointed out, the securities are often snapped up as securities in the capital market. Taking this process and pushing it into HUD, as one proposal suggests, he said bluntly, would never work.
That Washington and Hill staffers are taking positions that are hypocritical or at least na
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Erika Morphy
Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.
