The administration’s plan for overhauling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was widely anticipated as part of or alongside this February’s budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year. The budget for fiscal year 2011 was presented on schedule, but it did not include a formal road map for the government-sponsored enterprises. It now appears Read More
With Stuyvesant Town headed to creditors, Senator Schumer has joined the pile-on on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Mr. Schumer put out a statement Tuesday calling on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to ensure that the 11,200-unit property is sold with long-term guarantees of affordability.
“At the end of the day we have to Read More
With the ever-troubled Stuyvesant Town now bordering on default, particularly in the wake of last month’s giant court decision, a set of elected officials has begun taking their concerns straight to the 11,200-unit complex’s debt holders: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Bypassing the current owners–a partnership led by Tishman Speyer–the officials who represent the Read More
Editor’s note: The Lead Indicator is a new weekly column in the Commercial Observer by economist Sam Chandan of the Wharton School. This is the first column.
In New York City and across the country, multifamily and commercial real estate investment activity has plummeted since the onset of the credit crisis. The absence of an Read More
From The Times‘ Floyd Norris on the Bush administration’s takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:
Who could have forecast that it would be under the Bush administration, which talked about restraining the growth of these behemoths, that they came to totally dominate the mortgage markets? Now the administration wants to have it both Read More
From The New York Times:
Lawmakers and experts described the legislation as a landmark shift in the government’s role in the housing market, extending a helping hand to both Wall Street and Main Street. They said it would rank in importance with the creation of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation to prevent foreclosures in Read More
Paul Krugman in The New York Times this morning on Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae:
[T]he storm over these particular lenders is overblown. Fannie and Freddie probably will need a government rescue. But since it’s already clear that that rescue will take place, their problems won’t take down the economy.
Furthermore, while Fannie and Read More
As of last week, what has long been suspected by this
correspondent was made clear: The weather forecasts are the work of the same
people who put together the “official” economic statistics. The blizzard never
arrived on Monday; on Wednesday, the National Association of Realtors, red of
face, confessed that its home-sales figures were wrong. Read More
Not long ago, three of us-men of a certain age and
background-found ourselves talking about the estate tax, which the Bush
administration proposes to phase out. We agreed that elimination of the death
tax would benefit us, or people close to us, to a significant degree. We also
agreed to a man, with conviction and Read More
