Signs that the administration is moving more slowly than anticipated are evident. The Treasury is yet to issue a long-awaited report on its plan for getting Fannie and Freddie out of the government’s grip, despite Calabria saying he hoped it would be released by the end of June. Now, agencies are aiming to get the document out within the next couple of months, according to people familiar with the matter.
The stakes are significant. Fannie and Freddie fuel the housing market by buying mortgages from lenders and packaging them into bonds that are sold to investors with guarantees of interest and principal. The process provides financing that makes homes more affordable, and keeps the mortgage market liquid. In total, Fannie and Freddie stand behind about $5 trillion of home loans.
Figuring out a fix for the companies, by far the biggest unresolved issue from the 2008 financial crisis, has long confounded policy makers and lawmakers. The companies were taken over by regulators and bailed out by taxpayers during the collapse of the housing market, ultimately getting $191 billion in aid. The have since since become profitable again, and paid more in dividends to Treasury than they received in rescue funds.
This year, there’s been optimism that Washington was finally making progress, particularly following the April appointment of Calabria.
A former economic adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, Calabria made a series of speeches and media appearances in the weeks after joining the FHFA in which he signaled fresh action. He said his agency and the Trump administration might bypass Congress to end the conservatorships, and that he wanted Fannie and Freddie ready to start raising raising capital by Jan. 1 of next year.
Trump himself even joined in, telling Realtors at a May conference in Washington that dealing with Fannie and Freddie was a “pretty urgent problem.”
For some on Wall Street -- hedge funds and other investors that own Fannie and Freddie shares -- the remarks have spurred excitement that they were poised to make a windfall, and possibly soon. The stocks have more than doubled this year.
Mnuchin has already signaled that he’s not looking for a quick fix for Fannie and Freddie. In a June 8 Bloomberg interview, he said the administration wouldn’t just let the companies build up capital and then release them without making major changes to housing finance policy.
Mnuchin hasn’t ruled out bypassing Congress to free Fannie and Freddie. Though Phillips’ June exit from Treasury might make doing so harder. The former BlackRock Inc. and Morgan Stanley has mortgage-finance expertise and deep connections on Wall Street, which probably would have proved helpful for possible stock sales. Phillips also had a strong interest in the issue, and it’s not clear who might fill that void at Treasury now that he’s gone.