Fannie Mae's $2 Trillion 'American Dream Commitment' On Course with Over $190 Billion in 2000 Targeted Lending

Business Wire, March 14, 2001

with six organizations including the AFL-CIO Housing

Investment Trust; the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation;

the McAuley Institute; The Enterprise Foundation; the National

Association for the Advancement of Colored People; and the

National Urban League.

-- Targeted Initiatives. Fannie Mae joined with national partners

and lenders to design targeted initiatives to help increase

homeownership opportunities among underserved populations.

These targeted groups include immigrants, faith-based

organizations, minority- and women-owned lenders and community

development financial institutions.

-- Fannie Mae launched the "Welcome Initiative: A New Home in

a New Country," a comprehensive bilingual marketing

campaign to help our lenders address the needs of

immigrant borrowers nationwide. Through this effort,

lenders have been able to offer immigrant families a

Fannie Mae mortgage with small down payments, knocking

down a major obstacle to homeownership. A total of $111

million in loans was made to immigrant families under this

initiative in 2000.

-- Working with faith-based groups such as the Congress of

National Black Churches and the National Congress for

Community Economic Development, through our lender

partners, Fannie Mae is working to ensure that these

communities receive home-buyer education, credit

counseling, and mortgage financing. The company expects to

reach 7 million potential homeowners.

-- Through its Minority- and Women-Owned Lenders (MWOL)

Initiative, Fannie Mae purchased $2.4 billion in loans, 60

percent of which were made to minority households.

-- Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) play

a critical role in neighborhoods traditionally underserved

by the housing finance industry. In 2000, Fannie Mae

committed to invest $14.3 million in CDFIs toward our goal

of $100 million invested by the end of the decade.

-- In 2000, the second full year of the Self-Help initiative,

Fannie Mae purchased more than $240 million in loans, for

a total to date investment of almost $600 million. Since

it was launched in 1998, the Self-Help initiative has

encouraged lenders to increase mortgage lending to

low-income borrowers by providing a secondary outlet for

previously non-conforming CRA-targeted lending.

"If we are to succeed in this initiative, the number of minority homeowners must grow at twice the rate Fannie Mae expects for homeowners overall," said Raines. "But given the disparities, this country can't afford to do anything less."

Opportunity for All Strategy

Fannie Mae's Opportunity for All strategy is a ten-year effort to increase homeownership rates and provide new housing support to women-headed households, new immigrants, urban households, as well as meeting the unique housing needs of seniors, poverty stricken areas in rural communities, and home buyers with special needs.

"More than ever before, America is defined by the multi-generational and multi-dimensional needs of the economy, and housing is no exception," Raines said. "Seniors and maturing baby-boomers, new generations of immigrants, young families just getting started, families headed by single women, and homeowners who are choosing to settle in urban and rural areas where the potential of local economies is often untapped. All of these Americans have very different housing finance needs."