Next Bailout Candidate
And the winner is…The Federal Housing Administration (FHA)! Lest it be forgotten, as the article duly notes:
The FHA and the government-sponsored housing agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac currently provide about 90 per cent of all new mortgages in the US housing market.
From The Financial Times:
Defaults pose risks to US housing agency
By Saskia Scholtes in New York
Published: November 12 2009 21:12 | Last updated: November 12 2009 21:12
The Federal Housing Administration, the government agency that insured $360bn of US single-family mortgages last year, said on Thursday that its insurance reserves had fallen below its congressionally mandated threshold to their lowest level ever.
Amid depressed house prices and mounting losses on insured mortgages, the FHA’s capital reserve ratio, which measures reserves after accounting for projected losses, fell to 0.53 per cent in the 12 months to September 30–well below the 2 per cent cushion it is required by Congress to maintain.
Last year its capital ratio stood at 3 per cent, and it was 6.4 per cent in 2007.
Rising defaults on FHA loans have prompted fears that the agency will need a taxpayer bailout. Defaults on FHA-backed loans reached 8.24 per cent in September–up from 8.1 per cent in August and 6.1 per cent a year ago.
Shaun Donovan, secretary for housing and urban development, whose office oversees the FHA, said the economy was worse than housing officials had expected. He projected that claims against the insurance fund would be higher than forecast and said action would be needed to shore up the agency’s reserves.
The FHA’s total reserves were more than $31bn, or more than 4.5 per cent of the insurance it had written, the agency said. Mr Donovan said that in almost every economic situation examined in an actuarial study, the FHA still had enough reserves to cover projected claims on outstanding loans.
