Austin Texas Mortgage Rates and Real Estate

WASHINGTON (AP) — Uncle Sam has just become the 800 pound gorilla in the U.S. mortgage market. The Bush administration is seizing troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a bid to help reverse a prolonged housing and credit crisis.

But private analysts worried that it may not be enough to stabilize the slumping housing market given the glut of vacant homes for sale, rising foreclosures, rising unemployment and weak consumer confidence.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com predicted that 30-year mortgage rates, currently averaging 6.35 percent nationwide, could dip to close to 5.5 percent. That’s because investors will be more willing to buy the debt issued by Fannie and Freddie — and at lower rates — since the federal government is now explicitly standing behind that debt.

“Effectively, the federal government has now become the nation’s mortgage lender,” he said. “This takes a major financial threat off the table.”

Officials announced Sunday that both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were being placed in a government conservatorship, a move that could end up costing taxpayers billions of dollars.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson refused to estimate how much the takeover of the two companies will cost the government, but he insisted that taxpayers will get paid back first.

“We structured this facility to protect the taxpayer,” Paulson said Monday in an interview on the CBS Early Show. “The government will be repaid … before the shareholders of these companies get a penny.”

In a separate appearance on CNBC, Paulson said “we obviously don’t know” when asked how much the takeover could end up costing taxpayers. He said that will depend on how quickly the housing market turns around.

Wall Street posted a huge rally Monday as investors reacted with enthusiasm to the government’s actions. The Dow Jones industrial average was up nearly 280 points in late morning trading.

The plan also touched off a global stock rally. Japan’s Nikkei stock average jumped 3.4 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index surged 4.3 percent. In morning trading, Britain’s FTSE 100 jumped 3.81 percent, Germany’s DAX index rose 3.21 percent, and France’s CAC-40 surged 4.44 percent.

Foreign investors own about $1.5 trillion of the debt issued by Fannie, Freddie and smaller agencies such as Ginnie Mae with about $1 trillion of that amount held by foreign governments.

Fannie and Freddie, which together own or guarantee about $5 trillion in home loans, about half the nation’s total, have lost $14 billion in the last year and are likely to pile up billions more in losses until the housing market begins to recover.

The Treasury Department said it was prepared to put up as much as $100 billion over time in each of the companies if needed to keep them from going broke, in exchange for senior preferred stock. Treasury will immediately be issued $1 billion of such stock from each company, which will pay 10 percent interest. Further purchases of preferred stock will be triggered if quarterly audits find that the companies’ capital cushion is below prudent standards.

The government, which will receive warrants representing ownership stakes of 79.9 percent in each company, is hoping that its moves will reassure nervous investors that they can continue to buy the debt of the two companies.

In a statement, President Bush said, “Americans should be confident that the actions taken today will strengthen our ability to weather the housing correction and are critical to returning the economy to stronger sustained growth.”

The conservatorship will be run by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the new agency created by Congress this summer to regulate Fannie and Freddie, a move taken at the same time that Congress greatly expanded the power of the Treasury Department to make loans to the two companies and purchase their stock.

The executives and board of directors of both institutions are being replaced. Herb Allison, the former head of the TIAA-CREF retirement investment fund, was selected to head Fannie Mae, and David Moffett, a former vice chairman of US Bancorp, was picked to head Freddie Mac.

Paulson was careful not to blame Daniel Mudd, the outgoing CEO of Fannie Mae, or Freddie Mac’s departing CEO, Richard Syron, for the companies’ current problems. While both men are being removed as the top executives, they have been asked to remain for an unspecified period to help with the transition.

Fannie and Freddie both purchase home loans from banks and then repackage those loans as mortgage-backed securities that they either hold on their own books or sell to investors around the globe. This process provides banks with more money to make more home loans, greatly expanding home ownership.

The impact of the government takeover on existing common and preferred shares, which have slumped in value in the last year, will depend on how investors react to Paulson’s assertion that they must absorb the cost of further losses first. Under the plan, dividends on both common and preferred stock would be eliminated, saving about $2 billion a year.

Analysts were split on how much the takeover could eventually cost taxpayers although they all agreed the up-front costs will be substantial, possibly hitting $100 billion as the Treasury is called upon to bolster the capital cushions at both institutions.

However, if the plan does the trick of stabilizing the housing market and home prices stop falling and rebound, then the assets of both Fannie and Freddie should rise in value and the government should be able to sell off the companies and recoup its investments.

But it could take a long time to work through that process given all the headwinds facing housing at the moment from the plunge in home prices to soaring defaults on mortgages which are dumping more homes on an already glutted market. The weak economy has pushed unemployment to a five-year high of 6.1 percent, further reducing demand for homes.

“I think the government will end up having to put in far more money then they are planning right now (given all the problems facing housing) but the important thing is the agencies have been taken over by the government,” said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University Channel Islands. “That means there will be less panic in financial markets.”

Under government control, the companies will be allowed to expand their support for the mortgage market over the next year by boosting their holdings of mortgage securities they hold on their books from a combined $1.5 trillion to $1.7 trillion. Starting in 2010, though, they are required to drop their holdings by 10 percent annually until they reach a combined $500 billion.

In addition, officials said the Treasury Department plans to purchase $5 billion in mortgage-backed securities issued by the two companies later this month, the first of a series of purchases planned by the government in an effort to bolster for these securities, which was badly shaken a year ago when the credit crisis first erupted with soaring defaults on subprime mortgages.

Paulson said that it would be up to Congress and the next president to figure out the two companies’ ultimate structure and the conflicting goals they operated under — maximizing returns for shareholders while also being required to facilitate home buying for low- and moderate-income Americans.

“There is a consensus today … that they cannot continue in their current form,” he said.

Associated Press Writer Ben Feller in Washington contributed to this report.

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Fannie & Freddie Bailout Won’t Cure Market’s Ills

The government bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has given investors at least a short-term reason to believe the worst has begun to pass, but it’s hardly a game-changer.

Market pros remain unconvinced that the rescue plan by itself will be enough to snuff out the Wall Street bears.

“This is another good piece of news to help us,” says Nadav Baum, managing director of investments at BPU Investment Management in Pittsburgh. “Are we going straight up from here? No. But what it does is gives us a lot of confidence.”

Housing will have to stabilize, banks need to get healthy, and the consumer has to escape the headwinds of surging unemployment and still-high energy prices before anyone is willing to pronounce a full recovery.

But some Wall Street watchers were at least exhaling on signs that the government would not allow Fannie (NYSE:FNM - News) and Freddie (NYSE:FRE - News), whose presence in the mortgage market is vital to maintain bank liquidity, to fail.

“Until the banks go through a quarter of not having to raise more capital, no real bull market is starting. The fact is I think we’ve put in a floor on the pessimism at this point,” says Michael Cohn, head of Atlantis Asset Management.

“The bear market will not be over until the shorts get carried out on stretchers, the same way they got carried out when the Fed lowered the discount rate back in March,” Cohn adds. “The path of least resistance is still downwards. Until there’s the perception that it’s dangerous to short stocks on rallies, the bull market can’t start.”

At the same time, some fear that the market is getting too hopeful that the Fannie-Freddie deal is a sign that government intervention will cure what ails the market.

“The long-term ramification is we could possibly be in stagflation–rising inflation and the slow-growth economy,” says Kathy Boyle, president of Chapin Hill Advisors in New York. “I don’t think this is good news. I’m not sure why the market is reacting this way. If they’re taking this as a sign that the government is going to step in and save other institutions, they’re wrong.”

Across the Board

Stocks rallied sharply off the opening of trading Monday, with the Dow registering a gain of more than 300 points early on. But the surge quickly cooled after a rapid round of short coverings and as sentiment sunk in that the market had more work to be done.

Still, Baum thought the move sent positive signals in that it was broad-based. Financials were the most obvious beneficiary of the Fannie-Freddie bailout, but the enthusiasm spread to builders and bluechips, as well as consumer stocks, though technology still lagged.

“You want to see people going out there and spending money again,” Baum says. “This market can’t be really strong until you start seeing people buying houses again and the financials get on a firmer footing. There have been so many writedowns–hopefully we’re in the ninth inning. This just helps the whole scenario across the board.”

Overall, though, Baum is sticking to his strategy of picking banks that look strong and pay good dividends, such as Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase , as well as bluechip bellwethers AT&T and CNBC.com parent General Electric .

The bailout thus far has enjoyed bipartisan support, also boosting investor enthusiasm.

Any type of psychological edge is integral heading into the presidential election, says Cohn, who is buying preferred shares in financials.

“We’re not rallying to 13,000 (on the Dow) between now and November, but the fact is I think the July lows may hold,” he says. “In fact, 10,000 is off the table as far as I’m concerned.”

Bears Still Lurking

Not everyone is as optimistic.

“I’d love to be able to tell you it’s a game-changing move, but I’m not convinced. I think it’s more a one-off short-covering event,” says Matthew Tuttle, president of Tuttle Wealth Management. “It’s a market that we really haven’t had any good news for a long time, so anything that comes out that’s good we’re due for a rally. The problems still persist.”

Tuttle is not so pessimistic that he’s willing to move in and short the financials or the broader market, but he is taking a conservative strategy.

He said the most he would do to capitalize on the current moves would be taking a short-term position on an exchange-traded fund for the financials, but is otherwise staying put.

“At the end of the day there’s just a lot of other stuff that needs to get fixed before I would feel totally comfortable saying it’s the beginning of the end,” Tuttle says.

Monday’s trading seemed to reflect that skepticism.

Tech investors bailed out of the rally altogether, sending the Nasdaq composite into negative territory, while investors generally took a dimmer view of the market’s health as the day progressed.

“I’m not really sure this is going to be the cure-all and be-all for this economy and the market,” Peter Costa, of Eckhardt and Co. said on CNBC. “The next couple of days I’m still a little bit bearish.”

Even someone bullish as Cohn says there are still some challenging days ahead for the market.

“Short-term a bunch of banks still have problems,” he says. “I do think that the opportunity to buy things extremely cheaply is right now. You just have to have patience.”

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