Business
Obama to tout mortgage reform to help speed up recovery in housing market
U.S. President Barack Obama. PHOTO/File
U.S. President Barack Obama is proposing to overhaul the nation’s mortgage finance system, including shutting down government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a plan with bipartisan support on Capitol Hill.
Obama will also insist that popular 30-year mortgages be widely available to borrowers, even in a system that would rely more on the private sector than the government to guarantee loans.
Obama will outline his proposals Tuesday at a construction company in Phoenix, once the epicenter of the housing crisis following the 2008 economic collapse. The housing market in the region, as in much of the country, has rebounded in recent months, buoyed in part by low interest rates.
The president’s trip marks the latest stop on his summertime economic tour aimed at refocusing his agenda on middle-class Americans still struggling to recover from the recession. The collapse of the housing market in particular had a dramatic impact on people’s lives and the economic viability of communities nationwide.
“So many Americans across the country view their own economic and financial circumstances through their homes and whether they own a home, whether their home is underwater, whether they feel like they have equity in their homes,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday.
Senior administration officials said Obama would focus in Phoenix on shifting more of the burden for supporting the nation’s massive mortgage market to the private sector.
A centerpiece of that effort is winding down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance operations that received a US$187 billion taxpayer-funded bailout in 2008.
The White House has previously lauded efforts to achieve that goal spearheaded by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. While Obama will outline his own proposals Tuesday, his plans are largely in line with the bipartisan Senate overhaul.
