: Insurance, Housing, and Community Development Subcommittee Chairman Judy Biggert announced today the Subcommittee will hold a hearing to examine ways to facilitate private sector participation in the mortgage market. The hearing will take place on February 16th at 2 pm in room 2128 Rayburn.
Subcommittee Chairman Biggert said, “Government intervention in the housing market reached record levels during the financial crisis, resulting in a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of billions of dollars. Our aim is to explore how the government may be driving private capital away from housing while impeding market recovery. We’ll also examine options for promoting long-term stability and removing barriers to private investment in the housing market.”
The hearing, entitled “Are There Government Barriers to the Housing Recovery?”, will review the state of the housing finance market, benefits of establishing a housing finance market in which private capital is the primary source of financing, and the impediments that are preventing private capital in the mortgage market. Currently, FHA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac have a combined market share above 90 percent of the mortgage market. As a result of the government holding a great share of the market, private capital has been shut out of the mortgage finance system because of cheap capital and government guarantees that are backing FHA and the GSEs. These government guarantees increase the risk to the taxpayer of substantial losses.
The witnesses scheduled to testify at the hearing are:
Panel I
David Stevens, Assistant Secretary for Housing and Commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
Theodore “Ted” Tozer, President, Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae)
Phyllis Caldwell, Chief, Homeownership Preservation Office, U.S. Department of Treasury
Panel II
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President, American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2003 to 2005
Michael A. J. Farrell, Chairman, President & CEO, Annaly Capital Management, Inc.
Faith Schwartz, Executive Director, HOPE Now
Julia Gordon, Senior Policy Counsel, Center for Responsible Lending