FHFA Scorecard - More General than Aspirational

The 2019 goals for the GSE conservatorship are a good deal more general than those put forward on the yearly Scorecard from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) in the early years of the recovery.  Many of the goals outlined in 2012 and thereafter have been accomplished - setting limits on compensation for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae executives, building a common securitization platform and issuing a single security for the two companies.  Those for next year, released earlier this week, appear to be a case of continuing to continue on, marking time until Congress and the Trump Administration get their act together and resolve the fate of Fannie and Freddie.

Anyway, FHFA says its 2019 Scorecard furthers the coals outlined in its Strategic Plan for the Conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2014. These goals include:

• Maintain, in a safe and sound manner, credit availability and foreclosure prevention activities for new and refinanced mortgages to foster liquid, efficient, competitive and resilient national housing finance markets;
• Reduce taxpayer risk through increasing the role of private capital in the mortgage market; and
• Build a new single-family infrastructure for use by the GSEs and adaptable for use by other participants in the secondary market in the future.

FHFA says it will assess Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's progress in achieving those goals using several measures.  These include the extent to which each conducts itself in a safe and sound manner, meets FHFA's expectations for an appropriate return on its capital targets, and how the outcomes of the GSE's activities support a resilient secondary mortgage market to support homeowners and renters.