WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has set the 2022 multifamily loan purchase caps for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be $78 billion for each agency for a combined total of $156 billion. The 2022 caps are based on FHFA’s projections of the overall growth of the multifamily originations market. This year the caps are set at $70 billion a piece for both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The FHFA wants the agencies to keep their focus on providing liquidity for affordable housing and underserved markets. Just like this year, the organization is requiring that at least 50 percent of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s multifamily business in 2022 to be mission-driven affordable housing, or for units affordable to residents earning 80 percent of area median income (AMI). However, at least 25 percent of the agencies’ multifamily business is required to be affordable to residents at or below 60 percent of AMI, up from the 20 percent required this year.
Additionally, the FHFA is expanding certain definitions of what it determines as “mission-driven affordable housing.” Starting next year, the FHFA will allow loans on affordable units in cost-burdened renter markets and loans to finance energy or water efficiency improvements for units affordable at or below 60 percent of AMI to now be classified as “mission-driven.”
“The increases of the multifamily loan purchase caps and higher mission-driven business requirements assure that the enterprises’ multifamily businesses have a strong and growing commitment to affordable housing finance, particularly for residents and communities that are the most difficult to serve,” says Sandra Thompson, acting director of the FHFA.