..."Over the past few months, I think people knew there were bad loans out there and the banks hadn't written them down yet," said Gary Painter, director of research for the University of Southern California's Lusk Center for Real Estate.
"The primary loans [the GSEs] hold are what we would call the prime loans as opposed to the subprime loans," Painter said. "While there have been increased defaults, there isn't the same reason for concern as there is with other banks."
During the past year, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have lent large amounts of money in the multifamily arena. "The most important part of multifamily lending going forward and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's role in it has to do with the impact of legislation regulating Fannie and Freddie," Painter said. "If they are given a more focused role to securitize single-family mortgages, there could be a pullback from multifamily."
August 4, 2008