Federal Housing Finance Agency December 2021 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is issuing a final rule on the single-family housing goals for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) for 2022 through 2024, as well as the multifamily housing goals for 2022. The Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 (the Safety and Soundness Act) requires FHFA to establish annual housing goals for mortgages purchased by the Enterprises. The housing goals include separate categories for single-family and multifamily mortgages on housing that is affordable to low-income and very low-income families, among other categories. The final rule establishes the benchmark levels for each of the single- family housing goals and subgoals for 2022 through 2024. The final rule also replaces the low-income areas subgoal with separate area-based subgoals targeting the individual components of the low-income areas subgoal (minority census tracts and low-income census tracts). The final rule establishes the multifamily housing goals for 2022 only. For the small low-income multifamily subgoal, the final rule establishes separate benchmarks for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Finally, the final rule makes several technical changes to definitions and other provisions to conform the regulation to existing practice.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA or the Agency) is proposing to require the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac, and with Fannie Mae, each an Enterprise) to submit annual capital plans to the Agency and provide prior notice for certain capital actions (the proposal or proposed rule). The Agency is also incorporating the determination of the stress capital buffer into the capital planning process. The requirements in this proposal are consistent with the regulatory framework for capital planning for large bank holding companies.