The Federal Housing Finance Agency has announced that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae can increase their financing of multifamily mortgages this year to help avoid a possible tightening of multifamily credit and higher borrowing costs. Per Bloomberg:

The FHFA is exempting additional types of multifamily mortgages from counting towards $30 billion financing caps on both Fannie and Freddie that it set in January. Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are on track to hit those caps by the third quarter.  

According to the article, agency lenders have pushed for the restrictions to be liberalized in recent weeks to avoid a possible tightening of multifamily credit and higher borrowing costs.

“It shows that the regulator is focused on liquidity in the markets,” said Susan Weber, a spokeswoman for Walker & Dunlop, a major lending partner of Fannie and Freddie.