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Prepared Remarks of Sandra L. Thompson, Acting Director, FHFA, at FHFA Virtual Listening Session: "Enterprise Duty to Serve 2022-2024 Proposed Plans: Manufactured Housing

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
7/14/2021

​​​​​​Public Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Sandra L. Thompson

Acting Director, Federal Housing Finance Agency


FHFA Virtual Listening Session: "Enterprise Duty to Serve 2022-2024 Proposed Plans: Manufactured Housing" 

Wednesday, July 14, 2021


Let me thank all our participants in this week's virtual listening sessions.

All across the United States, Americans are struggling with a housing crisis. Each market and community faces its own mix of challenges, but a common theme can be found in widespread shortages of affordable housing.

The total supply of housing is insufficient to meet ongoing demand. And new housing production is skewing towards higher priced segments of the market. That leaves low- and moderate-income Americans increasingly cut off from housing opportunities.

FHFA's mission, through our regulated entities, is to responsibly foster a sustainable housing finance system that supports equitable access to both affordable homeownership and rental housing, reaching communities of color, rural areas, and other underserved populations.

Duty to Serve plays an important part in this.

Under the Safety and Soundness Act, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are each charged with a duty to "provide leadership" in facilitating a secondary market in mortgages for families in three specific underserved markets:

(1)   Affordable housing preservation,

(2)   Manufactured Housing, and

(3)   Rural markets

FHFA's implementing regulation requires each Enterprise to develop its own plan for serving the specified markets over three-year periods.

Earlier this year, the Enterprises submitted their proposed 2022-2024 Underserved Markets Plans, which are posted on the FHFA website. This week FHFA has held a listening session for each statutory underserved market to encourage feedback on those plans from stakeholders and the public. Interested parties are also encouraged to submit written comments on the proposed plans through our website​. FHFA and the Enterprises want to hear your feedback on how best to reach underserved markets.

During a time of shortages, preservation of the existing affordable housing stock becomes even more urgent. Recent estimates​ show that just in the next five years, a quarter of a million publicly-subsidized homes will see their affordability requirements expire. It is critical that the Enterprises meet their duty to serve this market in keeping with their charter purpose "to promote access to mortgage credit throughout the Nation."

Manufactured housing is one option that has potential to grow the affordable housing supply without subsidies. And Duty to Serve has already produced demonstrable results in increasing Enterprise support for manufactured housing.

For example, the Enterprises almost doubled their purchases of loans secured by manufactured housing titled as real property between 2017, the year before Duty to Serve was implemented, and 2020. In addition, both Enterprises exceeded their loan purchase targets for manufactured housing communities with tenant pad lease protections—providing new and important protections for residents in these MHCs.

And manufactured housing is an especially important resource for many rural communities. Rural areas tend to have limited housing options and older housing stock. Getting an accurate appraisal can also be difficult.  Fortunately, despite the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 saw the Enterprises still able to exceed some of their goals in the rural housing market. FHFA looks forward to them doing even more to connect rural areas to national housing finance.

FHFA expects the Enterprises to live up to their mission obligations and help ensure that investment capital reaches underserved markets. Fannie and Freddie have a responsibility to identify the obstacles these communities face in accessing mortgage credit and affordable housing, as well as a duty to develop strategies for overcoming them safely and soundly.

As we enter the next three years of Duty to Serve, I look forward to seeing the Enterprises fulfill their charter purposes by "increasing the liquidity of mortgage investments and improving the distribution of investment capital" throughout the country. Their success in this mission will play a critical role in relieving our nation's widespread affordable housing shortage.

Thank you again for joining our listening session. ​

Attachments:

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Contacts:

Media: Raffi Williams Raffi.Williams@fhfa.gov​​

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