Trump Administration Wants to Privatize Fannie & Freddie

The Wall Street Journal is reporting (reposted on Realtor.com) that President Trump supports returning mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to private hands, which they say is a development that could keep the two companies at the center of the housing market for decades.  The WSJ said that if the administration follows through on privatizing the firms, they would essentially return to a status similar to before the financial crisis, with their effective duopolies intact, for lack of a better alternative.

“Our view is that the government footprint has become too big,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in an interview ahead of Thursday’s report. “There are people in Washington who are happy to leave this the way it is for another 10 or 20 years, and that’s not us. We feel an obligation to try to fix this.”

Click here to read the full story at Realtor.com.

Click here to read the full story at the Wall Street Journal.