SUMMARY: Section 1205 of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA) amended the Federal Home Loan Bank Act (Bank Act) by adding a new section 10C(a) that requires the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to establish housing goals with respect to the Federal Home Loan Banks’ (Banks) purchase of mortgages, if any. Section 10C(b) provides that the Banks’ housing goals are to be consistent with the housing goals established by FHFA for the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) (collectively, the Enterprises) under sections 1331 through 1334 of the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992 (Safety and Soundness Act), as amended by HERA, taking into consideration the unique mission and ownership structure of the Banks. Section 10C(c) further provides that, to facilitate an orderly transition, the Director shall establish interim target housing goals for the Banks for a transition period extending through 2010. Section 10C(d) also extends the monitoring and enforcement requirements of section 1336 of the Safety and Soundness Act to the Banks in the same manner and to the same extent as those requirements apply to the Enterprises.

To implement section 10C, FHFA is issuing and seeking comments on a proposed rule that would establish three single-family owner-occupied purchase money mortgage goals and one single-family refinancing mortgage goal applicable to the Banks’ purchases of single-family owner-occupied mortgages, if any, under their Acquired Member Assets (AMA) programs, consistent with FHFA’s proposed single-family housing goals for the Enterprises. A Bank would be subject to the proposed housing goals if its AMA-approved mortgage purchases in a given year exceed a volume threshold of $2.5 billion. Other provisions in the proposed rule would be consistent with comparable provisions applicable to the proposed Enterprise housing goals to the extent appropriate, taking into account the nature of the Banks’ AMA programs and the Banks’ unique mission and ownership structure.

DATES: Written comments must be received on or before July 12, 2010.​