Fannie Mae-No Politics (FNMA)

[Robert from yahoo bd]

What the Chair of the Senate Banking Committee fails to recognize is that BUT FOR THE EVIL HEDGE FUND GUYS' AND OTHER PRIVATE CAPITAL SCOOPING UP FORECLOSED HOMES DURING THE DEPTHS OF THE GFC, AMERICAN FAMILY HOMEOWNERS WOULD HAVE SEEN THEIR HOME PRICES PLUMMET EVEN MORE!

"Sen. Brown’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, follow:

One thing seems to be pretty much certain in this economy: no matter what happens to most Americans – a financial crisis, a global pandemic – Wall Street will find a way to profit off of everybody else’s pain.

We all remember 2008.

Nearly nine million workers lost their jobs. Workers’ savings were wiped out.

And nearly 10 million families lost their homes and everything that went with them –months and years of mortgage payments, their neighborhood school, the family pet, the stability of knowing where you live, where your kids would go to school, and where you’d attend church for the next 20 or 30 years.

But as families watched their dreams crumble, Wall Street found new opportunities to profit from the devastation it created.

As families – disproportionately families of color, who had been targeted with predatory loans – lost their homes, private equity funds with access to cheap cash were waiting to scoop them up.

Following the 2008 financial crisis, private equity funds bought families’ homes in cash, often at foreclosure auctions. And they bought the loans of the hardest-hit borrowers in bulk from FHA and the GSEs.

These professional investors weren’t shy about what made it possible – and profitable – for them to buy up tens of thousands of homes.

They told investors: “recent turbulence in U.S. housing and mortgage markets,” created a “unique opportunity.” And the availability of large quantities of single-family homes at “distressed prices,” and “strong demand from tenants” meant the opportunity for “attractive yields.”

“Unique opportunity” for “attractive yields.”

Think about that – in plain English, that meant take advantage of the foreclosure crisis – the crisis that turned homeowners’ lives upside down and gutted their hard-earned savings – to give Wall Street billionaires the chance to buy up homes for less than they’re worth, and rent them out at a steep profit."

https://www.brown.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/brown-private-equitys-renters