Fannie Mae

Good day, and welcome to the Fannie Mae Third Quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, I will now turn it over to your host, Pete Backell, Fannie Mae's Director of External Communications.

Hello, and thank you all for joining today's conference call to discuss Fannie Mae's Third Quarter 2024 Financial Results. Please note this call includes forward-looking statements, including statements about Fannie Mae's expectations related to economic and housing market conditions, the future performance of the company's book of business, and the company's business plans and their impact. Future events may turn out to be very different from these statements. The risk factors and forward-looking statements sections in the company's third quarter 2024 Form 10Q filed today and in the company's 2023 Form 10K filed on February 15, 2024, describe factors that may lead to different results. A recording of this call may be posted on the company's website. We ask that you do not record this call for public broadcast and that you do not publish any full transcript. I'd now like to turn the call over to Fannie Mae President and Chief Executive Officer Priscilla Almodovar and Fannie Mae Chief Financial Officer Krista C. Halley.

Welcome and thank you for joining us. Before we get into our results, I want to mention those affected by recent natural disasters. These events can be tough and Fannie Mae is here to help. I'll discuss this more shortly. I'll start by talking about the economic conditions in the third quarter before moving on to our financial results and mission performance. After that, our Chief Financial Officer, Krista Haley, will discuss our quarterly results in more detail. First, the economy. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate averaged 6.5 percent during the quarter, more than 50 basis points lower than the same time last year. Even with lower rates and better supply in some areas, existing home sales stayed low. Our research team thinks 2024 will have the lowest existing home sales since 1995. Housing affordability still makes it hard for people to buy homes. We estimate home prices went up about 1% during the quarter and 5.9% since the start of the year. Overall, home prices are up over 50% since 2019. With this in mind, it is not surprising that only 19% of people surveyed in our recent home purchase sentiment index said it was a good time to buy a home. For renters too, affordability is still a problem in many areas. Many are spending more than 30% of their income on housing. Now let's look at our third quarter financial results. We made $4 billion in net income, which is down from the $4.5 billion we made in the second quarter. Our net income increased our net worth to $90.5 billion as of the end of September, making us even more financially stable. Plus, since the start of this year, we've reduced our minimum regulatory capital shortfall by $17 billion. We provided $106 billion of liquidity to the single family and multifamily markets in the third quarter. Our efforts helped 383,000 households buy, refinance, or rent a home. This included about 103,000 units of multifamily rental housing, mostly affordable for household earning at or below 120% of area median income. We also helped 117,000 first-time homebuyers to buy a home. Our efforts are focused on shaping a housing market that sees and serves more people. This includes our ongoing work to remove obstacles that many renters and homebuyers face, like limited credit history and high upfront costs. For example, in both multifamily and single family, we're using rent payment data to support better outcomes for consumers. Additionally, we are exploring new ways to support our mission in the capital markets, like with our single-family and multi-family social bonds that help direct capital towards affordable housing and underserved borrowers and markets. Our mission is not just about helping people get into homes, but also helping them stay in their homes. especially during tough times like disasters. Fannie Mae provides many resources to renters and homeowners after disasters. This includes free, personalized help from HUD-approved housing counselors. It also includes mortgage assistance for eligible Fannie Mae homeowners where they can temporarily reduce or suspend their mortgage payments under a forbearance plan. After this period, we offer workout options to catch up on missed payments, like our disaster payment deferral and flex modification. For eligible multifamily owners that are borrowers, we offer help such as forbearance and repayment plans. This allows them to temporarily suspend payments and then to catch up through structured payment plans. These options not only help communities grow stronger, but they make Fannie Mae's business more stable. They are important parts of how we manage risk. These efforts show that we are committed to working with our partners to support homeowners and renters in the U.S. We're also focused on strengthening our finances and managing risks, which helps us provide liquidity and stability to the housing market and achieve our mission. Thank you to my Fannie Mae colleagues for their dedication to finding innovative solutions to the nation's toughest housing challenges. Now, Krista will share more about our third quarter results.