The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released its 2012 Performance and Accountability Report (PAR) on Thursday and announced that its financial statement therein had received an unqualified or "clean" audit opinion from the U.S. Government Accountability Office for the fourth consecutive year.  

The PAR details the agency's activities as conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs) and as regulator of the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBs) and discusses highlights, collective efforts to assist homeowners, and the remaining challenges and ongoing initiatives to ensure the agency meets its strategic goals for the FY2012.

Among the key FHFA accomplishments detailed in the PAR:

  • Provided results and conclusions of 2011 examinations of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHLBs in FHFA's annual Report to Congress.
  • Produced A Strategic Plan for Enterprise Conservatorships, with a roadmap for the FHFA and the GSEs in the next phase of the conservatorships then incorporated it into a new four-year strategic plan for FHFA.
  • Established a new Office of Strategic Initiatives to coordinate and oversee the activities associated with the conservatorship plan.
  • Issued a white paper, Building a New Infrastructure for the Secondary Mortgage Market, which proposes a common securitization platform for both GSEs.
  • Appointed new chief executive officers for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and increased and realigned FHFA staff supervising the companies.
  • Worked with the GSEs to complete foreclosure prevention actions and enhanced the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) to increase refinances.
  • Completed first real estate owned pilot initiative to dispose of approximately 1,772 Fannie Mae single-family foreclosed properties in areas hardest hit in the housing downturn.
  • Terminated cease and desist order on the Chicago FHLB due to improvements in the bank's financial and capital positions and deemed the Seattle FHLB "adequately capitalized" due to a strengthening of its capital position.

The complete report is available at http://www.fhfa.gov/webfiles/24632/2012FHFAPARF.pdf