This annual report describes FHFA's accomplishments, as well as challenges, the agency faced in meeting the strategic goals and objectives during the past fiscal year.
Read about the agency’s 2015 examinations of Fannie Mac, Freddie Mac and the Home Loan Bank System.
Submit comments and provide input on FHFA Rules Open for Comment by clicking on Rulemaking and Federal Register.
Goal: Help restore confidence, enhance capacity to fulfill mission, and mitigate systemic risk that contributed directly to instability in financial markets.
MAINTAIN foreclosure prevention activities and credit availability, REDUCE taxpayer risk, and BUILD a new single-family securitization infrastructure. Read more in the 2016 Scorecard and Conservatorships Strategic Plan.
Plans and Reports
FHFA experts provide reliable data, including all states, about activity in the U.S. mortgage market through its House Price Index, Refinance Report, Foreclosure Prevention Report, and Performance Report.
HARP - the Home Affordable Refinance Program was created by FHFA specifically to help homeowners current on their mortgage payments, but underwater on their mortgages.
FHFA economists and policy experts provide reliable research and policy analysis about critical topics impacting the nation’s housing finance sector. Meet the experts...
Key Topics pages provide information about FHFA's work on a range of issues facing the nation and highlight the most relevant related news releases, reports, statements and web pages on the respective topics.
The Honorable Melvin L. Watt of Charlotte, NC sworn in on January 6th to a 5-year term as the first Senate-confirmed Director of FHFA.
Read more about Director Watt
Read Mel Watt's Bio
Contact Us
Enacted to reform practices that led to the financial crisis of 2007-08 and to reduce the risk of such crises in the future. Among other changes, the Act established the fifteen-member Financial Stability Oversight Council, chaired by the Secretary of the Treasury and including the Director of FHFA as a member, to identify risks to the United States financial system, promote market discipline, and respond to emerging threats. It also established new consumer protections, including provisions related to mortgage lending, and required the development of new prudential regulations jointly by a number of financial regulatory agencies, including FHFA. Read the Act
Read Ed DeMarco's Bio
Provided for Federal assistance to homeowners threatened with the loss of their homes and charged FHFA with certain foreclosure mitigation duties. Read the Act
Read Statement by James Lockhart
Enacted in response to the financial crisis of 2007-08, the Act created the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) as supervisor of the enterprises and the Banks (together, the regulated entities); abolished OFHEO and the FHFB; and transferred mission supervision of the enterprises from HUD to FHFA, thereby consolidating all supervision of the enterprises within FHFA. The Act provided FHFA supervisory authorities on par with those of other federal safety and soundness supervisors, and enhanced resolution authority. Single family housing goals were updated and strengthened under the Act, and a multifamily special affordable housing goal was created for the enterprises. It also required the Director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board to issue regulations establishing comparable goals for the Federal Home Loan Banks. Read the Act
Modernized the Federal Home Loan Bank System, established new requirements for Bank governance and capital and eliminated the mandatory membership requirement for Federal savings associations. Read the Act
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight publishes 1999 Annual Report to Congress that includes Risk-Based Capital Rule and results of first Annual Risk-Based Exams of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight issues its Examination Handbook setting forth the framework and standards for comprehensive annual risk-based examination of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight publishes the first House Price Index (HPI).
Established a safety and soundness supervisor for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac within HUD, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), and directed HUD to establish single family, multifamily, and low-income affordable housing goals for the enterprises. Read the Act
Reconstituted Freddie Mac in response to the savings and loan crisis of the late 1980s to permit ownership by other than the Federal Home Loan Banks, abolished the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, and provided oversight authority to HUD. FIRREA also created the Federal Housing Finance Board (FHFB) to oversee the Federal Home Loan Bank System, directed it to establish affordable housing goals for the Banks, and extended Bank membership to community development financial institutions and insured depository institutions, including commercial banks. Read the Act
Created the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) to “provide stability in the secondary market for residential mortgages”. Freddie Mac was similar to Fannie Mae in its status as a Government-sponsored enterprise and its powers, but it was owned by the Federal Home Loan Bank System and governed and subject to oversight by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. Read the Act
Divided Fannie Mae into two separate entities: the Federal National Mortgage Association, a “Government-sponsored private corporation” and the Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae), which would remain a government entity, both subject to HUD oversight. Both entities were intended to provide more liquidity and certainty to the mortgage markets, but Ginnie Mae was limited to creating a secondary market in home loans insured by FHA. Read the Act
Amended title III of the National Housing Act (12 U.S.C. 1716 et seq.) to authorize only one Federal National Mortgage Association, and to name Fannie Mae as that Association. Fannie Mae was then supervised by the Housing and Home Finance Agency, a predecessor to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Authorized the creation of national mortgage associations to “purchase and sell first mortgages… together with the credit enhancements, if any, secured thereby”, including mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The Act was intended to add liquidity to the mortgage markets by providing for a secondary mortgage market structure. In 1938, the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) was created as a private company by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, under the authority of title III of the National Housing Act, and at the direction of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Read the Act
Created the Federal Home Loan Bank System in the wake of the Great Depression. The Act provided for access to home mortgage funding on a nationwide basis through a network of 12 Federal Home Loan Banks, established as cooperatives owned by member building and loan associations, savings and loan associations, cooperative banks, homestead associations, insurance companies, and savings banks and supervised by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. Read the Act
