GSEs’ latest duty to serve goals offer more ways to expand lending

The Federal Housing Finance Agency on Tuesday announced the latest versions of the government-sponsored enterprises’ underserved markets plans for 2021, which include opportunities for lenders to expand their origination activity.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s plans usually cover a three-year period, but “due to potential market disruption and uncertainty as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic,” their terms have been shortened to one year.

The underserved markets plans are part of the “duty to serve” program. DTS was established as part of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, and it is aimed at improving the secondary market for financing in three sectors serving people with very low incomes: manufactured housing,affordable housing preservation and rural housing.

Fannie Mae seeks to “launch a targeted effort through one or more lenders” that expands its manufactured housing program. It plans to purchase between 12,650 and 13,150 conventional manufactured housing loans, which would be a 15% increase from its 2019 manufactured housing loan purchase goal. It also looks to “introduce at least one variance or policy change that broadens Fannie Mae’s ability to serve” the manufactured housing market by holding roundtables with lenders of this housing type.

An additional part of the Fannie plans to develop “a loan product enhancement” with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s rural development program in which it will buy six loans financing USDA Section 515 properties from lenders. Fannie has not bought any of these loans in recent years.

The government-sponsored enterprise’s plan indicates that it will “provide training and resources to interested lenders” in conjunction with this effort.

Examples of lending initiatives Freddie Mac on its 2021 roadmap include plans to “engage at least two lenders serving tribal areas to establish direct or indirect selling relationships that can support future loan purchase activities.”

Freddie also plans “to enable lenders to lend more for small multifamily properties” which have five-plus units and balances that range from $1 million to $7.5 million. Among steps it plans to take to do this is to publish an official product term sheet on its website and more actively market the loans through “conversations with smaller lenders and intermediaries.”

Other areas in which the GSEs plan to build on and expand past DTS activities include shared-equity lending and green financing.

Many of these niches within lending are underserved because of hurdles traditional lenders face in accessing such as the relatively less favorable economics of small loans or the fact that manufactured housing may not be titled as real property. As a result, DTS has had mixed success when it comes to addressing those challenges as it has continued to chip away at them over the years.