Tuesday, September 29, 2009

$35B for HFA mortgages

From the Wall Street Journal:

The Obama administration is close to committing as much as $35 billion to help beleaguered state and local housing agencies continue to provide mortgages to low- and moderate-income families, according to administration officials.

The move would further cement the government's role in propping up the housing market even as some lawmakers push to curb spending at a time of rising debt.

The effort, which could be announced as early as this week, is aimed at relieving pressure on government-operated housing finance agencies, which have been struggling to find funding amid the downturn. These agencies, or HFAs, are a small part of the housing market but are critical to many first-time and low-income home buyers, who can get lower-rate mortgages through an HFA than they could through a private-sector lender. Rates are typically 0.5 to one percentage point lower than commercial lenders.


Isn't this how we got in trouble in the first place?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let's put the blame where we should, squrely on the shoulders of the Wall Street thieves. You can't always blame the poor people.

Anonymous said...

You're right, Crapper. Let them default on their loans, increase the homeless rate, lower property values, increase taxes to make up for the decreased revenues, and ruin more neighborhoods. I miss the South Bronx of 1970s. Let's bring it to the rest of country in 2010.

Anonymous said...

Giving mortgages to people who can't pay them is suicide.

Anonymous said...

The state HFAs who are receiving the assistance from the govt never made subprime loans. Their delinquency rates are below national delinquency rates. Although their loans are made to people with lower and moderate incomes, all of the borrowers have to meet debt to income tests and have average fico scores of 700. The govt assistance is meant to help responsible first time borrowers get mortgages.