On January 25th in Chicago, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) which oversees the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac listened to several industry representatives regarding the entities Duty to Serve Manufactured Housing. In particular, Amy Bliss, Executive Director for Wisconsin Housing Alliance, testified that chattel lending in manufactured home communities must be a key component in their pilot project to serve the industry. In addition to their duty to serve manufactured housing, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have a mandate to serve rural areas and to preserve affordable housing. Amy testified that by providing chattel loans in land-lease communities, they would be serving all three mandates.
FHFA has asked that we not provide in depth details of others testimony until the transcripts of the meeting have been released, so at this time, full details of the meeting are not being released. It can be said, though, that the industry message of the importance of chattel lending was heard loud and clear from about 20 entities including MHI, MHARR and many other industry members. Rick Rand from Great Value Homes also testified to educate them about the land-lease lifestyle and the importance of responsible lending to help modest income families gain wealth from asset building in a manufactured home.
Three more listening sessions are scheduled throughout the U.S. and if all goes according to plan, a pilot project might be announced early in 2018.
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