Hayward: Fannie Mae Multifamily to Focus on Liquidity

WASHINGTON, DC-Fannie Mae’s top leadership position has now been filled, but it's still business as usual for the GSE’s multifamily unit, says Jeff Hayward, SVP and head of Multifamily at Fannie Mae. “Tim Mayopoulos has been a colleague and an outstanding leader,” he tells GlobeSt.com. “From the perspective of understanding and caring about what happens in housing we couldn’t have found anyone better as CEO.”

All that said, a change in leadership will not impact multifamily’s day-to-day operations that greatly. The GSE’s multifamily unit has been focused on its mission of liquidity and executing on that goal, Hayward says. For that reason, it is not considering new product development or tweaks to existing products.

“There is no real necessity for innovation right now," he says. "Our job is to make sure that customers have a place to put their loans and that securities are sold to the market. And we are doing that.”

To that end, last month Fannie Mae priced its fourth Multifamily DUS REMIC for the year—a $753- million transaction—under its Fannie Mae Guaranteed Multifamily Structures. It was a rocky month and the GSE reported that some of the regular participants in the program sat on the sidelines, largely due to the low absolute yield levels. The good news, according to Kimberly Johnson, VP of Multifamily Capital Markets, was that there was still strong subscription in the shorter tranches, broader distribution across the board and some new players to the program.

Fannie Mae’s GeMS program has been steadily attracting new investors with each of its issuances. For example, in its second transaction in February—a record-breaking $977-million transaction—new investors included regional banks or money managers attracted to the offering’s yield.