In an effort to help underserved borrowers, Director Melvin L. Watt of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has ordered the GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to increase the use of housing counseling. It is hoped that this will assist entry-level borrowers to get into the housing market by educating them about the process.  Watt also wants to “review new ways of evaluating borrowers’ creditworthiness.”

He also stated that he believes these goals will help FHFA and the GSEs to “build a strong, vibrant national housing finance market, which will create new homeownership and rental opportunities for existing and potential borrower.”

Bloomberg News tells MHProNews that the FHFA hopes this process will enable more people to buy affordable homes including manufactured homes.

Watt, who took over at FHFA a year ago, has been reversing previous policies that emphasized shrinking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The two companies, which were seized by regulators in 2008, buy more than half of the new mortgages in the United States and package them into securities.

In an attempt to boost funding for affordable rental housing, the two companies will each be limited to buying $30 billion in apartment building loans unless the loans are for affordable housing projects or manufactured housing rental communities. ##

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Article Submitted by Sandra Lane to – Daily Business News- MHProNews.