HUD: GSEs Met AH Goals in '06

The Department of Housing and Urban Development says Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac met or exceeded their affordable housing goals for 2006 even though Freddie missed one of the home purchase subgoals by a tiny fraction.The government-sponsored enterprise purchased 179,145 mortgages that qualified for the special affordable home purchase subgoal, but "missed by 634 loans," Freddie said in its annual affordable housing report to HUD. Freddie Mac's report also shows that its purchases of asset-backed securities accounted for 32.5% of single-family units qualifying for the low- and moderate-income housing goal, and its purchases of commercial mortgage-backed securities accounted for 56.4% of the qualifying multifamily units. Fannie noted that it started purchasing CMBS in 2006, but did not discuss its ABS purchases.