Pursuant
to the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA), which became
law on July 30, 2008, HUD's regulatory responsibilities over Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac (government sponsored enterprises or GSEs) have
transferred to a new regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency
(FHFA), effective immediately. This means, among other things, that
the FHFA assumed responsibility for the affordable housing goals.
(The housing goals were established under the Federal Housing Enterprises
Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992. The new law retains
the housing goals through 2009, but has redefined them for subsequent
years.)
Prior
to HERA, the Secretary of HUD was the mission regulator for the
GSEs, with oversight authority to ensure that both GSEs complied
with the public purposes set forth in their charters. HUD had general
regulatory authority for oversight responsibilities, which included
establishing housing goals; monitoring and enforcing compliance
with housing goals; new program approval; collecting loan-level
data from the GSEs on their mortgage purchase activities; making
available to the public a database on non-proprietary GSE loan purchase
data; and ensuring GSE compliance with fair lending requirements.
An independent office of HUD, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise
Oversight (OFHEO) regulated the GSEs for safety and soundness by
ensuring that they were adequately capitalized and operating their
businesses in a financially sound manner.
With
the exception of fair lending oversight, which remains at HUD, HUD's
mission oversight responsibilities, as well as OFHEO's safety and
soundness responsibilities, have been transferred to the FHFA.
Additional
information regarding the role and function of the FHFA will be
available on its website, currently in development. Upon full implementation
of the FHFA website, HUD will remove the links for "Regulatory Reading
Room" and "Housing Goals Information" from this website.
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