Mortgage giants were blind to housing risks

ANALYSIS

updated 7:18 a.m. ET Sept. 8, 2008

WASHINGTON - Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — despite their robust cadre of economists and mortgage experts — failed to heed warnings that the most dramatic housing bubble in U.S. history would burst.

The companies — particularly Freddie Mac — didn't raise enough cash to reassure Wall Street that they would be able to withstand a severe downturn in U.S. home prices.

As their losses started rising at alarming rates, investors simply lost confidence, forcing the government's historic takeover of the two companies, which could be announced as soon as Sunday.

Democratic Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview Saturday that the companies' financial picture was better than investors assumed, but "it just plainly became clear that elements of the market wouldn't accept that."

Investors have reason to be jittery.

On Friday, the Mortgage Bankers Association said that more than 4 million American homeowners with a mortgage, a record 9 percent, were either behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of June.

Also on Friday, Nevada regulators shut down Silver State Bank, the 11th failure this year of a federally insured bank. In July, regulators seized IndyMac, which had $19 billion in deposits. And earlier this year, the government orchestrated the takeover of investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. by JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has been in contact in recent weeks with foreign governments that hold billions of dollars of Fannie and Freddie debt to reassure them that the United States recognizes the importance of the two companies.

Nevertheless, the Bank of China said in late August that it cut back its portfolio of the Fannie and Freddie's debt by about one quarter since the end of June.

Washington-based Fannie and McLean, Virginia-based Freddie are the engines behind a complex process of buying, bundling and selling mortgages that remains a mystery to millions of Americans whose home loans pass through this system. Together Fannie and Freddie hold or guarantee about $5 trillion in mortgage debt — about half of the U.S. total.

They traditionally backed the safest loans, 30-year fixed rate mortgages that required a down payment of at least 20 percent. But in recent years, they lowered their standards dramatically, matching a decline fueled by Wall Street banks that backed the now-defunct subprime lending industry.

Armando Falcon, who clashed frequently with the companies during his six years as Fannie and Freddie's chief government regulator, said in an interview last month that the companies' woes are similar to the downfall of other major corporate titans like Enron and WorldCom earlier this decade. "It boils down to a whole lot of greed and arrogance," he said.

The companies, he said, took advantage of the perception on Wall Street that the government would stand behind them in a time of crisis, as is now the case.

With that implied government backing, the companies generated large profits for years, but ultimately took on too much risk, causing investors to lose faith in their ability to navigate the historic housing bust.

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Economists who long warned the U.S. housing boom could not last are baffled that the companies were not better prepared for what they saw as an inevitable downturn.

"How could you look at an enormous rise in prices and not think there was a potential for them to fall?" said Christopher Thornberg, a principal with Beacon Economics in Los Angeles.

Another longtime proponent of the housing bubble concept is Dean Baker, co-director of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. He recalls several occasions when he debated top Fannie and Freddie economists, who dismissed the idea that U.S. home prices could decline.

"Even if they didn't' want to listen to me, they should have at least thought this could be a possibility," he said.

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