Congress approved a long-awaiting housing market rescue bill on Saturday, July 26th, 2008, and President Bush is expected to sign the bill promptly. The bill offers emergency financing to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and creates a $300 billion fund to help distressed homeowners.

America is in its deepest housing slump since the Great Depression, with a record number of foreclosures, anemic home sales, and steadily deflating property values. Fears earlier in the month of a collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own or guarantee almost half of the country’s $12 trillion mortgage debt, led the Bush administration to end its opposition to a mortgage bailout program.

It is hoped that the emergency measures will bolster investor confidence, but many analysts feel the legislation may be too little, too late to have a dramatic or immediate effect on the downward trend.

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition, comprised of 600 community investment and redevelopment groups, estimated that 2.5 million U.S. households will face foreclosure this year. A NCRC spokesman stated that the legislation “will likely have little effect on the foreclosure crisis gripping the financial markets and economy.”

Connecticut Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd estimates that it will take four months to get the FHA program operating, and housing activists say it may not be fully operational until 2009.

The bill provides for a temporary line of credit for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with a provision allowing the government to buy shares in those programs, which raises concerns by many about the eventual cost to taxpayers. Texas Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson stated, “I am troubled by the inclusion of an unlimited U.S. Treasury credit line to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.”

Among the bill’s other provisions is the establishment of a $300 billion fund under the Federal Housing Administration to assist homeowners in obtaining more affordable government-backed mortgages, enabling them to escape high-interest subprime and adjustable rate mortgages. However, in order for an estimated 400,000 families to be helped by this program, lenders will be required to accept possible losses on the switchover by borrowers from their original loans to the more affordable new loans.

The legislation provides for about $4 billion in grants to communities to assist in buying, repairing, and renovating foreclosed homes, even though President Bush has expressed opposition to such a provision. The bill also offers tax breaks to encourage home buyers, establishes a national licensing system for mortgage brokers and loan officers, and raises the limit on the size of mortgages that federal agencies can guarantee. It also creates a new regulator over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with increased power over controlling capital levels, executive compensation, and internal finances

“These provisions will go a long way toward restoring confidence in the housing markets by creating a new, stronger regulator with all the necessary tools to oversee Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks. OFHEO is ready to move forward quickly as part of the new Federal Housing Finance Agency, created by this bill,” said James Lockhart, director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.

Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama both expressed their support for the new legislation.

A spokesman for Senator McCain stated that McCain “believes that relief for struggling homeowners is overdue, applauds the passage of this legislation and urges the president to sign it quickly.”

Senator Obama stated that the bill was “urgently needed” and represented “an important start to protecting homeowners and restoring stability to our housing market and our economy.”

http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USN2141192720080727

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/massive-housing-relief-bill-awaits-presidents/story.aspx?guid=%7B4F8D1E25%2D5736%2D4F05%2DAEA0%2DC982EE25D3A9%7D&dist=hpts

Kathleen