Rob Chrisman
The Community Home Lenders Association (CHLA) today released a detailed report on Ginnie Mae, urging the agency not to over-react to concerns about financial risk in its supervision of issuers, particularly smaller, community-based IMBs. The Report deals with concerns CHLA first raised last month in Congressional testimony about reports of Ginnie Mae not granting commitment authority requests and raising net worth and liquidity requirements above posted levels for individual issuers. The CHLA Report offers recommendations on how Ginnie Mae should balance its statutory access to mortgage credit responsibilities with prudent supervision. It describes how Ginnie Mae's risk is limited and its financial performance has been strong over the last decade, warning that a Ginnie Mae overreaction could significantly shrink the number of issuers and increase concentration. CHLA's report explains how this could hurt smaller issuers, reduce consumer choice, and increase Ginnie Mae's risk, by concentrating issuance among the largest issuers which pose the greatest risk.