Tag: fannie mae

The CAP-AEI Fannie Mae Food Fight

By
Mark A. Calabria

It’s probably never wise to inject oneself into the middle of a food fight, but since I think both sides actually have something right and something wrong, its been a worthwhile debate to follow.  That is the ongoing debate between Peter Wallison at the American Enterprise Institute and David Min at the Center for American Progress (at least we can all agree we love America) on the role of Fannie Mae (and Freddie Mac) in the financial crisis.  If you can’t guess, Peter says Fannie/Freddie caused the crisis, David says they didn’t.

David makes an interesting point, one I’ve actually argued, in his latest retort.  That is, this wasn’t exclusively a housing crisis/bubble.  Other sectors, like commercial real estate, boomed and then went bust; other countries, with different housing policies, also had bubbles.  True from what I can tell.  I will also add that the U.S. office market actually peaked and fell before the housing market, so we can safely say there wasn’t contagion from housing to other parts of the real estate market. 

But the problem with this argument, at least for David, is that it undercuts the Dodd-Frank Act, which he has regularly defended.  The implicit premise of Dodd-Frank is that predatory mortgage lending caused the crisis, so now we need Elizabeth Warren to save us from evil lenders.  But how does predatory lending explain the office market bubble?  Do we really believe that deals between sophisticated parties, poured over by lawyers, were driven by predatory lending practices?  Do we also believe that other countries were also plagued by bad mortgage brokers?  Again, I think David is right about the problem being beyond housing, but he can’t have it both ways.

What is the common factor driving bubbles in commercial real estate, housing, and foreign real estate markets?  Maybe interest rates.  This was a credit bubble after all.  Especially since the Fed basically sets interest rate policy for the world.  It is hard for me to believe that three years (2002–2004) of a negative real federal funds rate isn’t going to end badly.  This is what I think Peter misses, the critical role of the Federal Reserve in helping blow the bubble.  But Dodd-Frank does nothing to change this. 

Now there are a ton of things I think both still miss.  We could argue all day about what a subprime mortgage is.  I think the definitions used by Wallison (and Pinto) are reasonable.  There is also a degree, a large one, to which David and Peter are just talking past each other.  For instance, there is something special about the U.S. housing market that transfers much of the risk to the taxpayer.  In contrast, the bust in the office market didn’t leave the taxpayer to pick up the tab.  That has to count for something, unless one just doesn’t care about the taxpayer. 

There are a few other issues that make Fannie/Freddie uniquely important in the crisis, but I lack the space to go into them here. Instead, I’ll wrap up by saying that their role in the overnight repurchase (re-po) market is under-appreciated and their ability to essentially neuter the Fed was critical in keeping the bubble going.  What’s for dessert?

Topics: 
Finance, Banking & Monetary Policy

Exit Interview with Sheila Bair

By
Mark A. Calabria

Sunday’s New York Times Magazine has an interesting exit interview with Sheila Bair, who until this past Friday served as Chair of Federal Deposit Insurance Commission (FDIC). While I haven’t always been her biggest fan, I did find it refreshing to hear a bank regulator state the obvious:  we should have let Bear Stearns fail. As she puts it:

Bear Stearns was a second-tier investment bank, with — what? — around $400 billion in assets? I’m a traditionalist. Banks and bank-holding companies are in the safety net. That’s why they have deposit insurance. Investment banks take higher risks, and they are supposed to be outside the safety net. If they make enough mistakes, they are supposed to fail.

I’d be hard-pressed to say it better. Assisting the sale of Bear to JP Morgan created the expectation that anyone larger, like Lehman, would be assisted as well. Perhaps the most interesting part of the interview is that Bair gets right to the heart of the matter: the treatment of bondholders. ”Why did we do the bailouts?” Bair states “It was all about the bondholders.” Again she couldn’t be more correct. If there was anything Dodd-Frank should have fixed it was this, ending the rescue of bondholders and injecting market discipline back into bank.  It is also refreshing to hear her admit: ”I don’t think regulators can adequately regulate these big banks, we need market discipline. And if we don’t have that, they’re going to get us in trouble again.”

Where I disagree, besides her misguided take on mortgage re-sets, is whether Dodd-Frank will actually impose losses on bondholders. Bair expresses some optimism that such is the case, but there are just too many holes in Dodd-Frank to make that believable. Plus you pretty much have the same set of rules in place for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, yet the last time I checked the bondholders are still being protected at the expense of the taxpayer. If we don’t impose losses on Fannie creditors, even now after the panic, what makes anyone think we will do so to Citibank. Section 204 of Dodd-Frank is quite clear that the FDIC indeed retains the power to rescue creditors. Something that Bair was willing to do during the crisis, even if pushed to do so by Tim Geithner. Despite some errors, the interview is really a worthwhile read and has some real lessons for avoiding the next financial crisis.

Topics: 
Finance, Banking & Monetary Policy

Monday Links

By
George Scoville
  • Regulatory privilege is not consistent with competitive markets–that’s why Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac need reform.
  • Thank goodness the U.S. Supreme Court found that education tax credits are not consistent with the fictitious notion of a “tax expenditure.”
  • President Obama’s budget plan is not consistent with either his own deficit commission’s plan or the Constitution.
  • The modern “Executive State” is not consistent with Article II of the Constitution.
  • Cyberbullying laws are not consistent with the First Amendment and our concept of free speech:


Topics: 
Cato Publications

Fannie, Freddie: Late to the Party?

By
Mark A. Calabria

Debates over the causes of the financial crisis sometimes center on whether Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were “late to the party” in terms of subprime lending.  As it relates to the recent crisis, I address this question elsewhere. 

The GSEs and their apologists do claim to have been big contributors to one party: the expansion of homeownership in the United States.  Yet the facts suggest otherwise.

The chart below compares the GSE’s market-share, in terms of home mortgage lending (as reported in the Fed’s Flow of Funds data), with the national homeownership rate (as reported in the Decennial Census). 

The chart makes readily apparent that the largest increases in homeownership occurred before the GSEs played much of a role, if any, in the mortgage market.  For instance, by 1970, the homeownership rate had reached 62.3, yet the GSE market-share was just above 6%.  Even a decade after Fannie was “privatized,” the GSE market-share was still under 20%.

The real growth in GSE activity occurred during the 1980s, particularly the later half.  The reason?  The implosion of the savings and loan industry.  It seems we simply substituted several thousand mismanaged and under-capitalized thrifts for two large mismanaged and under-capitalized thrifts.  Interestingly enough, as the GSEs were doubling their market-share in the 1980s the homeownership rate actually fell.  By the time the GSEs had reached a market-share of 50%, the U.S. homeownership rate had already come close to the rate we see today, of 66%.

The data clearly show that we became a nation of homeowners with little assistance from Fannie and Freddie.  Not only did they join that party late, they simply took the place of the last group to ruin the party:  the S&Ls.

Topics: 
Finance, Banking & Monetary Policy

Wednesday Links

By
George Scoville
Topics: 
Cato Publications

The Mortgage Industry-Government Revolving Door

By
Mark A. Calabria

The Washington Post is reporting that current Federal Housing Administration (FHA) head David Stevens, who only last week announced he was leaving FHA, is going to be the new head of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

When Stevens was first nominated to head FHA, I have to admit I was concerned.  FHA has a long history of prioritizing the interests of the mortgage industry over that of the taxpayer.  And here was a guy right out of the real estate industry (former Freddie Mac exec).  My expectations weren’t exactly high.  Maybe because of that, I’ve been largely impressed.  As FHA Commissioner, Stevens has taken eliminating fraud seriously, as well as avoiding a taxpayer bailout of FHA (so far).

All that said, it is hard to imagine that in under a week’s time, he interviewed with and was hired by the Mortgage Bankers Association.  So while there’s no evidence that he was looking at an MBA job while carrying out his duties running FHA, there is certainly the appearance of such.  The appropriate thing to do would be to leave FHA before getting a job with the very industry that FHA regulates and subsidizes.

Again I think Stevens has done a far better job at FHA than many of his predecessors, and I don’t believe he played a role in the financial crisis, but I do believe the cozy relationship between the mortgage industry and our federal government did play a huge role in the crisis.

Topics: 
Finance, Banking & Monetary Policy

Are Mortgages Cheaper in the U.S.?

By
Mark A. Calabria

As Congress and the White House continue to debate the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, one of the oft heard concerns is that if we eliminate all the various mortgage subsidies in our system, then the cost of a mortgage will increase.  There certainly is a basic logic to that concern.  After all, why have subsidies if they don’t lower the price of the subsidized good.  Of course some, if not all, of said subsidy could be eaten up by the providers/producers of that good.

All this begs the question, with all the subsidies we have for mortgage finance, are mortgages actually cheaper in the U.S.?  While not perfect, one way of answering that question is to look at mortgage rates in other countries.   Although every developed country has some sort of government intervention in their mortgage market, almost all have considerably less support then that provided by the U.S.  (For a useful comparison of international differences see Michael Lea’s paper).

The European Mortgage Federation regularly collects information on mortgage pricing by EU countries.   The latest complete annual data from the EMF’s Hypostat database is for 2009, with at least a decade of historical data.

A quick glance reveals that mortgage rates in most European countries are not all that different than rates in the U.S.  For instance in 2009, the U.S. 30 year mortgage rate was, on average, 5.04; whereas mortgages in France averaged 4.6 and those in Germany averaged 4.29.  In the UK, the average was 4.34.

Part of this difference is driven by product type.  For instance, in France, most mortgages tend to be 15 year, which one would expect to be cheaper than a 30 year.  But the French 15 year rate of 4.6 isn’t all that different from the current U.S. 15 year rate of 4.1.  As lending rates are usually bench-marked off the rate on government debt, part of the slightly higher rate in some European countries is due to their higher government borrowing rate.  If we instead measure mortgage costs as a spread over government funding costs (as reported by the OECD), then many European countries look more affordable than the U.S.  For instance, German mortgages price about 100 basis points over long-term German govt debt; whereas U.S. mortgages price about 140 basis points over long-term U.S. government debt.

I don’t expect these numbers to settle the debate.  A variety of other costs, such as points paid or required downpayments, differ dramatically across countries.  Unfortunately that data does not seem to be readily available.  What the preceding comparison does suggest, however, is that even without Fannie and Freddie, U.S. mortgage rates aren’t necessarily going to be a lot higher.

Topics: 
Finance, Banking & Monetary Policy

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