Cost of Bailing Out Fannie and Freddie Expected to Fall Sharply
Source: WSJ
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are expected to begin repaying taxpayers for their bailout faster than initially projected, in part because of an improving housing market.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the companies' federal regulator, released a report on Friday that estimated they will pay between $32 billion and $78 billion to the U.S. Treasury through 2015. The baseline forecast assumes that the companies would end up costing taxpayers $76 billion by the end of 2015, down from the current tab of $142 billion.
Since the companies were placed into conservatorship by the government in 2008, they have drawn nearly $188 billion from the Treasury and paid back $46 billion in dividends. The government assisted the companies to preserve functioning mortgage markets, taking preferred shares of stock in exchange for that support.
Last year, the regulator estimated that the tab would drop to $124 billion by 2014. The projections are significantly better than those issued one year ago for two reasons. First, home prices have improved this year, which has boosted the mortgage-finance giants' bottom lines.
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204598504578080770443540656.html
If the link says for subscribers only, you can copy and paste the subject line in google and will get a "free pass."
It would be nice if the President will emphasize how both the auto makers and Fannie and Freddie are paying back for the bail out, and then some.
= new reply since forum marked as read
And 2008 was.......anyone???? Anyone? BeeeeeeFoooooooore President Obama took office!
But anyone want to bet $10,000 dollars the Mitt will try to spin this as still a bad thing that was President Obama's fault?