Appraisers' Free Forum

**Jim Plante** · Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 5:30 pm Post subject: No more Fannie/Freedie?

I was watching/listening/dozing during Fox Business News this afternoon. Four different financial big-shots offered the opinion that Fannie and Freddie should be broken up into ten different units like the Federal Reserve, and Fannie/Freddie should be dissolved.

Dick Bove said that the debt burden of Fan/Fred equals the national debt, so the government should NOT buy their stock to shore up their prices. Doing so would be an explicit assumption of their debt. He said the best thing that could be done is to dissolve both of them. He even predicted that this time next year, there won't be any Fannie or Freddie.
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Jim Plante

**Bill Caudell** · Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 8:34 pm Post subject: Re: No more Fannie/Freedie?

**Jim Plante** · Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 10:31 pm Post subject:

Maybe non-GSE investors, who would probably be more finicky about what they were considering buying.

I've had at least two independent investors in my small rural area to request drive-by appraisals on properties whose notes they were considering buying. They didn't want the occupant to know they were looking at them, so they ordered "no contact, no interior inspection." Since they were both commercial premises open to the public, we made a cursory interior inspection pretending to be potential customers. I don't know the final disposition, but both assignments paid good fees, $1K±.

There's a possibility that the ten Fannie fragments might continue to offer secondary market purchases, but they'd be more tightly regulated, and would function without the government's backing. Since they're smaller, they'd be easier to monitor and control.
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Jim Plante

**Steve Owen** · Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 2:52 pm Post subject: Re: No more Fannie/Freedie?

**Steve Owen** · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:05 am Post subject:

No more Fannie/Freddie? Sorry, Jim... it was a dream too good to be true.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/business/24housing.html?th&emc=th

But, there are a few Republicans who are really Republicans left... at least when it gets close to election time...