Fannie/Freddie Joint Venture Too Far Under Radar; Existing Sales Foiled by Same Old Villain

Fannie/Freddie Joint Venture Too Far Under Radar; Existing Sales Foiled by Same Old Villain

Most of the major proposals for reforming the housing finance system rely on two steps to minimize the risk that any one or two institutions, and in today's environment that would mean the GSEs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, can pose to the mortgage market. Current proposals require that any institution that issues mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by the government share most of the related credit risk with others in the private market, and that there be a government or government-like utility to manage the infrastructure used in issuing these securities . In a research paper written for the Urban Institute's Housing Finance Policy Center, Jim Parrott, a non-resident fellow at the Urban Institute (UI) and owner of Falling Creek Advisors, says that the GSE's and their conservator/regulator