The Equity Sharing Solution to the Fannnie/Freddie Morass

Revisiting "Capped Upside, Unlimited Downside"

[Note to Readers: this post originally ran Christmas Week, when it was read by . . . no one. In the wake of Barney Frank's announced plan to abolish Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, I'm "popping" it to the top of the list.]

If you lend someone 97 cents to buy an asset that costs $1, what happens if the value of that asset falls to 95 cents?

How about 90 cents? Or 70 cents?

What if the borrower then loses their job?

Add eleven(!) zeroes . . . and you have the plight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a nutshell.

Background

One way or another, these so-called Government Sponsored Entities ("GSE's") -- and now FHA -- provide the bulk of the capital that finds its way into the U.S. housing market.

That capital takes the form of loan guaranties, mortgage origination, secondary market loan purchases, etc.; cumulatively, the foregoing aid -- investment, if you prefer -- amounts to hundreds of billions annually.

When dropping home prices -- and now, recession-induced job losses -- blow multi-billion dollar holes in these entities' balance sheets, what should the government do?

It would seem to have three choices: 1) shovel more money in; 2) require higher downpayments, to provide for a higher margin for error; or 3) get out of the housing subsidy business altogether, and pull the plug on the GSE's.

Option #3 has seemingly been taken off the table, because of the threat it would pose to housing prices generally.

Option #2, much less draconian, would also seem to undermine already shaky home Buyers' purchasing power, and therefore has also been rejected.

Which leaves option #1: support the GSE's with unlimited, open-ended capital infusions.

In fact, the government just decided to do exactly that, in an announcement purposely released on Christmas Eve to minimize scrutiny ("Fannie & Freddie, Uncapped").

High Costs, Dubious Benefits

Unfortunately, simply shoveling more money into these GSE black holes may be the worst strategy of all.

In the short run, it turns would-be home Buyers into armchair economists, trying to guess what the government will -- or won't -- do next to support home prices.

In the long run, massive government housing aid distorts prices, crowds out private lenders, and risks debasing the U.S. dollar -- thereby ushering in runaway interest rates.

If you think housing prices are under pressure now, just wait until long-term interest rates -- now around 5.25% for a 30-year mortgage -- hit 8%. Or 15%-plus, as happened in the early '80's.

Option #4

So what is the way out of this morass?

Go back to what happens to Fannie and Freddie as home prices fluctuate.

When housing prices fall, the GSE's suffer major impairments to their capital as borrowers default.

However, when home prices rise (yes, that can actually happen!), the most they stand to recover is the amount they originally loaned.

Heads, borrowers win; tails, the government loses (sound familiar?).

Instead, the GSE's should insist on sharing in any upside that borrowers enjoy.

The Stanford Model

Stanford University long ago established a similar housing subsidy for faculty struggling to afford expensive Bay Area housing.

In return for down payment assistance and low-cost mortgage money, the University effectively becomes a "partner" with the faculty-homeowner, enjoying a cut of the appreciation when the home is sold.

Emulating Stanford's approach not only would help the government's balance sheet, it would relieve pressure on foreclosures while putting borrowers on notice that there's no free mortgage lunch.

Over time, one might expect that realization to curtail their appetites . . .

Seed the Bottom of the "Food Chain"

Scorning the Financial Gods --
And Paying the Price

After the tech bubble, the healthy and natural progression dictated we enter recession. Alan Greenspan never allowed us to take that medicine, opting instead to inject the economy full of fiscal and monetary drugs. The resulting imbalances steadily built through the years and arrived at our doorstep with a thud. It’s not wise to mess with Mother Nature. We’re now witnessing the other side of risk gone awry and the cumulative comeuppance of a scorned business cycle.

--Todd Harrison, "The Future of Wall Street"; Minyanville (2/11/09)

If Harrison's take is right -- and I believe it is -- a couple conclusions and observations logically follow:

--Beware of cures that are worse than the disease (anyone else have deja vu right now?). Or, if you want a "folksier", Upper Midwest analogy: don't drive your car into the ditch -- or oncoming traffic! -- just to avoid a deer.

--The stage we're in now could be called "financial de-tox." It's perfectly appropriate -- and maybe even life-saving -- to use "financial methadone" ("hair of the dog," etc.) to help an acutely addicted patient wean themselves from their addiction (I put tax credits for home buyers, stimulus spending, federal aid to states, etc. in that category). Just be clear that that's what you're doing, and that such a strategy is temporary.

--There's something deeply ironic (if not foolhardy) about relying on an institution, The Fed, that helped cause today's financial melt-down to oversee its rescue. Ditto for too-big-to-fail financial institutions, GSE's ("government-sponsored enterprises") such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, etc.

--Instead of breaking with past financial blunders -- and sequestering flawed institutions -- we appear to be doubling (if not quadrupling) down. In that vein, you'd speculate that, once the financial dust settles, there will be calls to strip the Fed of some of the vast new powers it now wields (and to unwind what now very well may be the world's scariest balance sheet -- ever).

"Financial Food Chain"

Life does go on after the meterorite kills off the dinosaurs, the forest fire clears away the old giants, etc.

However, we would do well to *mimic how nature regenerates herself after such cataclysms: not by resurrecting the species at the top of the old, collapsed food chain but by seeding -- literally -- those at the bottom.

The meek may not inherit the earth, but birds and all types of microscopic plants sure seem better adapted to -- indeed, capable of adapting to -- a new and dramatically leaner environment.

*Manufacturers are just now beginning to exploit the secrets of what's called "biomimicry" -- for example, studying how a spider makes silk that is stronger, ounce for ounce, than tensile steel, while using vastly less energy and creating none of the waste or pollution.