The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released newly proposed benchmark levels for the GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and their multifamily housing goals for 2023 and 2024.
The updated levels now propose measuring the GSEs’ multifamily goals based the percentage of each enterprise’s annual multifamily loan acquisitions that are affordable to each income category – instead of a number of units financed like in the past.
Per MBA, FHFA Director Sandra L. Thompson said the proposed rule would ensure Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac focus on affordable segments of the multifamily market and noted it reaffirms FHFA’s commitment to promoting affordability nationwide. “The proposed change to the methodology will make the multifamily housing goals more responsive to market conditions,” she said.
By law, the GSEs must support a stable and liquid national market for residential mortgage financing. FHFA establishes annual housing goals for the GSEs and assesses their performance under the housing goals annually.
FHFA previously established benchmark levels in December 2021 for enterprise multifamily housing goals for 2022 only. At the time, FHFA established multifamily levels for a single year at a time due to market uncertainty resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential for unforeseen changes to multifamily market conditions beyond 2022.