DS News - U.S. Bank

72 I N D U S T R Y I N S I G H T / R A D H I K A O J H A A N D D A V I D W H A R T O N e 2018 midterm elections were historic on numerous fronts, with the Democrats retaking the House of Representatives and Republicans padding their majority in the Senate. CBS News and other outlets reported that an estimated 113 million people participated in the elections, which marked the first time in history that a midterm saw more than 100 million votes. Moreover, estimates indicate that around 49 percent of eligible voters participated in the midterms. For perspective's sake, only just over 36 percent participated in the 2014 midterms, generating one of the lowest voter turnouts in U.S. history. e elections also saw a number of "firsts" checked off the list. More than 100 women were elected to Congress, and the 2018 midterms also saw a 75 percent increase over 2012 in the number of women of color running for Congress. e tumultuous election night saw the youngest woman ever elected to Congress (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, age 29), the election of the first two Native American congresswomen, the first two Muslim congresswomen, the first Korean-American congresswoman, and the first openly gay male governor (Jared Polis, D-Colorado). With a new status quo settling over Washington, D.C., and the rest of the country, DS News set out to examine the landscape as the dust is settling and determine how this election is most likely to impact housing and mortgage markets going forward. THE FATE OF THE GSES AND THE BCFP After a decade under the Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) conservatorship, the Trump administration has indicated its intentions to work toward ending the conservatorship of the GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In a recent memo, Laura S. Wertheimer, Inspector General at the FHFA, identified four serious management and performance challenges that the agency faced in its role as a regulator and supervisor of the government- sponsored enterprises. ey included: 1) the In the aftermath of the midterm shakeup, DS News untangles how the new landscape could impact housing and mortgage in 2019.

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