The Senate yesterday confirmed Mark Calabria, previous chief economist to Vice President Mike Pence, as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) – the federal regulator overseeing Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the multi-trillion dollar Federal Home Loan Bank System. 

The Senate yesterday confirmed Mark Calabria, previous chief economist to Vice President Mike Pence, as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) – the federal regulator overseeing Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the multi-trillion dollar Federal Home Loan Bank System.

• Calabria will now have broad influence over reshaping the role of the Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) brought under government conservatorship during the financial crisis. 
• Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID) said on the Senate floor yesterday that Calabria "committed to working with me, and other members of this body, to reach a comprehensive solution on ending the conservatorship of Fannie and Freddie, once and for all.  He agrees with me, and many others, that action on housing finance reform is the prerogative of Congress, and that after over a decade of conservatorship, it is long overdue."  (Politico, April 4) 
• Sen. Crapo and President Trump last week launched separate efforts aimed at reforming the multi-trillion-dollar financial market for single-family and multifamily mortgages, including the GSEs' Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Chairman Crapo's  recent housing reform outline proposes to return the GSEs to private control.  (Roundtable Weekly, Feb. 8) 
• Sen. Crapo will be a featured speaker at next week's Spring Roundtable Meeting in Washington. 
• President Trump last week released a presidential memo directing "the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to craft administrative and legislative options for housing finance reform."  (Wall Street Journal, March 27) 
• President Trump also aims to end the GSEs' conservatorship, "promote competition in the housing finance market ... create a system that encourages sustainable homeownership and protects taxpayers against bailouts."  The memo supports the preservation of the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. ( White House announcement, March 27) 
• A coalition of 23 national real estate organizations, including The Real Estate Roundtable, sent a letter supporting Calabria's confirmation this week to Senate leadership.  (Coalition confirmation support letter, April 1) 

The Real Estate Roundtable and 27 industry organizations last month submitted principles for reforming the GSEs. (Roundtable Weekly, March 1)