Fannie Mae Chairman and CEO Raines Says Bush Administration Housing Budget, Initiatives Will Fuel 'New Power of Housing' and Economic Security

Business Wire, Feb 8, 2002

Business Editors

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 8, 2002

The Bush Administration's 2003 housing budget proposal will fuel the strong and steadily growing housing market, and advance President George W. Bush's priority of economic security, Fannie Mae's Chairman and CEO, Franklin D. Raines, said today.

In comments during the National Association of Home Builders' 2002 International Builders' Show, Raines applauded President Bush's call for "expanded homeownership, especially among minorities" and the Administration's 2003 budget proposal for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

"The President's housing plan will fuel the power of housing, which is easing the recession, speeding the recovery, expanding jobs and ensuring our economic security," Raines said.

"The Bush Administration's strong housing agenda is important -- housing is the number one consumer product, the number one consumer investment, the number one economic driver and the number one priority of communities," Raines said.

Raines also said these factors are expected to spur the U.S. housing sector to grow steadily throughout the decade at a rate that could exceed the record-breaking 1990s. Under current economic and demographic projections for the decade, Raines said consumers will double their investment in residential housing and need twice as much housing capital -- up to $14 trillion -- to finance it.

The growing need for housing poses new challenges not only to homebuilders, but also to those -- including Fannie Mae -- that supply the housing capital that consumers need to finance homes, Raines said.

"Those who raise housing capital for America must boost the supply, lower the cost, and operate with maximum safety, soundness, openness and transparency," Raines said. "As the `glass box' of financial services companies, Fannie Mae is living proof that when you have extraordinary transparency with strong oversight, strong capital standards, strong risk-management expertise and a simple business managing safe assets, it makes your job of raising low-cost capital a lot easier."

Fannie Mae is a New York Stock Exchange company and the largest non-bank financial services company in the world. It operates pursuant to a federal charter and is the nation's largest source of financing for home mortgages. Fannie Mae is working to shrink the nation's "homeownership gaps" through a $2 trillion "American Dream Commitment" to increase homeownership rates and serve 18 million targeted American families by the end of the decade. Since 1968, Fannie Mae has provided more than $3.6 trillion of mortgage financing for nearly 43 million families. More information about Fannie Mae can be found on the Internet at http://www.fanniemae.com.

Style Usage: Fannie Mae's Board of Directors has authorized the company to operate as "Fannie Mae," and the company's stock is now listed on the NYSE as "Fannie Mae." In order to facilitate clarity and avoid confusion, news organizations are asked to refer the company exclusively as "Fannie Mae."