The Federal Housing Finance Agency rated both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as still ‘critical concerns’ in the area of credit risk due to large legacy books of single-family loans in its latest report to Congress, said Ron D’Vari, cofounder and CEO of NewOak.

“FHFA has encouraged GSEs to reduce their credit risks by gradually selling down their distressed and illiquid loan portfolios,” D’Vari said.

He added, “A programmatic selling of distressed assets by GSEs will be much welcomed by the markets as many private equity and hedge funds are desperately looking for viable products to deploy their optimized solutions and operational infrastructure.”

As a result, it would be well advised for the enterprises to sell into a rather strong market bit for illquid assets and focus more on their ongoing support role for housing finance.

“Market bids currently reflect the rather scalable private funds efficient infrastructure for optimal servicing and loss mitigation strategies. These strategies take full advantage of modification, short sale,and potential REO-to-Rental exit as opposed to REO sales,” D’Vari stated.

In reality, the large banking institutions have been more agile in selling their risks and focusing on profiting from the housing recovery. 

While markets are still waiting for both government-sponsored enterprises to join, it’s expected that both GSEs will.

However, the firms may be late to the party.