Treasury Says HFA Bond Program Oversubscribed

Treasury Department officials are warning state and local housing finance agencies that the Obama administration's recently unveiled temporary bond purchase program is oversubscribed and that agencies will likely receive less assistance than they requested as a result. The officials issued the warning late last week and asked the HFAs to identify their peak years of issuance from 2004 to 2008 for both single-family and multifamily issues to help determine how much they should receive under the relief program. The agencies had to provide that information to the Treasury by noon on Monday, including CUSIP numbers or other ways to verify the information. The scale-back comes after Michael Barr, Treasury assistant secretary for financial institutions, last month declined to put a dollar amount on the program and instead told reporters it would be sized to meet demand. "We felt it is important to build estimates for the program from the ground up," he said during an Oct. 19 press conference when the temporary New Issue Bond Program was announced. Mr. Barr said at the time that there would be some form of ceiling on the size of the programs, but did not give any specifics. Program participants said yesterday that they do not know the total amount of allocations requested by the HFAs under the program and federal regulators could not be reached for comment.