AUSTIN, Texas -- Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's federal regulator took new steps to privatize the mortgage-finance companies on Monday, telling the firms to help lay the groundwork for their own transitions out of an 11-year government conservatorship.
In new policy goals, the Federal Housing Finance Agency for the first time released formal objectives calling for Fannie's and Freddie's return to the private sector. The companies have been in government conservatorship since the 2008 financial crisis. FHFA Director Mark Calabria , who took over the agency in April, is pressing to privatize the mortgage-finance companies, which back around half the nation's mortgage market.
"Real change has begun, and we are finally building momentum for lasting mortgage-finance reform," Mr. Calabria said in a speech here before the Mortgage Bankers Association .
Many specific policy details remain to be ironed out over the coming weeks and months, such as how much capital the firms must raise once they eventually leave government control. Still, Monday's outline gives the companies a loose set of guidelines they must meet before they can return to private-shareholder ownership.
Fannie and Freddie are central players in the housing market, buying about half of all U.S. mortgages from lenders and packaging them for issuance as securities. The government effectively nationalized them during the 2008 crisis in a bid to stabilize the housing market as mortgage defaults mounted. How the government addresses the companies' future could resolve the last major problem from the financial crisis.
The FHFA and Treasury Department in September began allowing Fannie and Freddie to retain as much as $45 billion of their earnings combined. Fannie currently holds $6.4 billion in capital and Freddie holds $4.8 billion , according to the FHFA. They would need substantially more capital as private companies, and would likely need to eventually turn to the public markets for it.
Monday's policy goals, contained in a strategic plan as well as a document known as a scorecard, included instructions for the companies to work with regulators as they revamp a postcrisis regulation that has transformed the mortgage market by allowing more deeply indebted borrowers to obtain home financing.
Mr. Calabria and other Washington policy makers want to curtail the provision to ensure the companies operate competitively with other market players, "with no special advantages for anyone," Mr. Calabria said in his speech.
A Fannie spokesman said the new policy objectives reflect "a positive development" and added the company is committed to meeting all its goals.
"The strategic plan and scorecard are important steps toward the ultimate goal of exiting conservatorship," Freddie Chief Executive David Brickman said in a statement.
The FHFA also instructed Fannie and Freddie to help eliminate overlap with the Federal Housing Administration , another federally backed program focused serving lower-income and first-time home buyers.
Another goal is a comprehensive review of a program known as credit-risk transfer that has allowed Fannie and Freddie to hand off some of the risk in their business of guaranteeing mortgages.
