Saturday, October 04, 2008

FANNIE AND FREDDIE: MORE INVOLVED THAN I THOUGHT

One of the central issues is how much sub-prime crap did Fannie & Freddie buy? It's hard to tell from this NY Times article (h/t Charlie (Colorado) at Just One Minute) because there is no breakdown into sub-prime and other loans:
Pressured to Take More Risk, Fannie Hit a Tipping Point
By CHARLES DUHIGG
Published: October 4, 2008
NY Times

Some of the text gives us a clue:
Between 2005 and 2008, Fannie purchased or guaranteed at least $270 billion in loans to risky borrowers — more than three times as much as in all its earlier years combined, according to company filings and industry data.

Between 2005 and 2007, the company’s acquisitions of mortgages with down payments of less than 10 percent almost tripled. As the market for risky loans soared to $1 trillion, Fannie expanded in white-hot real estate areas like California and Florida.

Bloomberg puts the total at less than $120 billion for sub-prime:
Fannie, Freddie Subprime Spree May Add to Bailout (Update2)

By Jody Shenn
Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- ... Fannie Mae of Washington and McLean, Virginia-based Freddie Mac held $114 billion of subprime and $71 billion in Alt-A securities as of June 30, according to the companies. Subprime mortgages were given to people with poor credit scores. Alt-A loans, which rank between subprime and prime, were made to borrowers with better credit who provided no proof of income, bought property for investment or took out so-called option adjustable-rate mortgages.
That is still a sizable amount and we can say that Fannie & Freddie were part of the sub-prime mess but we can't say that they caused it.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh yes we can, along with your pals Obama, Schumer and Frank.

If you weren't a moron you would know why.

Steve J. said...

Try explaining why instead of being insulting.

Anonymous said...

Look at the tool linking to the very people he made a mockery of below.

You really have no life.

Steve J. said...

You really have no life.

LOL! Then why are you posting here?

Anonymous said...

That doesn't even make sense, even coming from a tool like you.