The FinReg Pod Stress in America’s Housing Finance System
The country’s response to COVID-19 has constrained economic activity, dramatically reducing or eliminating the income of millions of workers. With enactment of the CARES Act, homeowners with Federally-backed mortgage loans (backed or owned by HUD, FHA, VA, USDA, Freddie Mac, or Fannie Mae) are entitled to up to six months of payment forbearance, which may be extended up to a year, upon a simple attestation of financial hardship.
In this episode, Ed DeMarco, president of the Housing Policy Council, talks about the current stresses our nation’s housing finance system is facing and the impact the CARES Act forbearance plan is having on mortgage servicers, particularly nonbank servicers. From 2009 to 2014, DeMarco was acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), where he served as the conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and regulator of those companies and the Federal Home Loan Banks. In this episode DeMarco also talks about the future of Fannie and Freddie and the challenges associated with being both the conservator and regulator of these entities.
You can find DeMarco's paper here:
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Interested in learning more about issues in financial regulation and policy? Check out the Global Financial Markets Center’s blog, The FinReg Blog.
You can learn more about the Global Financial Markets Center by visiting our website: https://law.duke.edu/globalfinancialmarkets/