Dec 23 “Affordable Housing” Goals, Zero Metrics: Prices Up 2.3% YoY While Policy Goes Data-Light

On 2025-12-23, an official press release announced “new, better affordable housing goals” for 2026–2028 and pledged that Fannie and Freddie would “fully support mortgages for families from every walk of life.” The problem: the release provided no targets, baselines, thresholds, or enforcement details—no way to judge success, calibrate risk, or connect policy to outcomes. Meanwhile, the most recent house price data with actual numbers shows prices rising, not easing—an affordability headwind the release never acknowledges.

Here’s what the document says—and more importantly, what it doesn’t:

• Sweeping commitments to affordability without any measurable 2026–2028 goals or compliance tests.

• Politicized claims that prior “harmful mandates” distorted the market, yet no evidence or performance data to substantiate either the harm or the fix.

• No affordability context—no mention of payment-to-income ratios, cost burdens, delinquency trends, or price trajectories.

• References a final rule “here,” but no accessible substance in the text; readers can’t evaluate what changed.

• Repeats the boilerplate that GSEs provide “more than $8.5 trillion in funding,” while excluding how allocations, risk, or market structure would shift under the new goals.

And the narrative drift is hard to miss: the Dec 10 release trumpeted “mortgage applications at a three-year high” and “compressing spreads” without a single number, source, or series; the Dec 23 release shifts to policy claims—again, without metrics. The only recent communication with real numbers (2025-10-28 FHFA HPI) shows house prices rose +0.4% MoM in August and +2.3% YoY, with July revised from -0.1% to 0.0%.

Affordability Claims vs. Price Reality

If the December 23 release is a pivot toward affordability, it forgets the one metric affordability cares about first: home prices. The last data-backed communication (2025-10-28 FHFA HPI) showed:

• National HPI up +0.4% MoM in August and +2.3% YoY versus August 2024.

• July revised up from -0.1% to 0.0%, soft, but not a decline.

• Regional spreads are wide: monthly changes from -0.8% (Pacific) to +1.2% (Middle Atlantic); YoY from -0.6% (Pacific) to +6.3% (Middle Atlantic).

That’s a mixed but rising-price backdrop—an explicit affordability challenge. Yet the Dec 23 policy framing doesn’t engage with these realities. No modeling of borrower payment burdens at current rate/price levels. No distributional analysis by income tier, loan size, or geography. No estimate of how the new goals might expand access where prices are still climbing versus regions where prices are flat-to-down.

If you’re promising broader access, show your math: target shares, eligible property types, loan features, and how risk will be offset across credit boxes and capital. None of that appears.

From Measurement to Messaging: A Three-Release Drift

There’s a pattern you can set your watch by:

• October (HPI): detailed figures, a revision, and regional dispersion. Transparent and testable.

• December 10: bold claims on “applications at a three-year high” and “compressing spreads,” with zero numbers or series. No reference to MBA indices, primary-secondary spreads, or MBS basis.

• December 23: a policy announcement that asserts “better” goals and market corrections while offering no thresholds, baselines, or rule text in the communication.

It’s not a small editorial choice. When communications swap data for slogans, analysts lose sight of what matters: how policy shapes volumes, credit risk, and pricing through the GSE pipeline. Without numerators, denominators, or timetables, markets are asked to price intent, not outcomes.

Where Are the Targets? The Mechanics That Matter

To evaluate “affordable housing goals” for 2026–2028, investors need specifics:

• Quantified benchmarks: purchase goals by income band, borrower type (first-time, minority, rural), and property type (1–4 unit, manufactured, condo/coop).

• Compliance pathways: scorecard mechanics, penalties for underperformance, safe harbors, and any adjustments for market cycles.

• Credit overlays and risk layering: LTV/DTI/credit-score bands; interaction with down payment assistance; expected use of appraisal waivers or alternative underwriting.

• Capital and risk transfer: expected volumes in CRT, guarantee fees, and pricing grids across cohorts; who bears the tail risk?

• Market impact: estimated changes in primary rates, lock volumes, and the primary-secondary spread, especially if subsidies or mission goals shift mix toward lower-FICO or high-LTV segments.

The Dec 23 release delivers none of the above. Instead, it recycles that the GSEs support “more than $8.5 trillion” in funding—true, but irrelevant to whether new rules will change allocations, costs, or risk.

Politics in Place of Policy

The release also attributes past dysfunction to “harmful mandates” from the prior administration and claims the new rule fixes it—without evidence. If you’re asserting distortion, show distorted outcomes. Where are the delinquency, prepay, or loss severity comparisons by cohort? How did pricing or approval odds differ pre- and post-mandates? Were there measurable adverse selection effects in CRT, or widening guarantee fees by risk bucket?

Markets don’t need rhetoric; they need time series. Right now, we have none attached to the claim.

What This Means for Markets

• Mortgage credit and MBS: The absence of targets injects uncertainty into 2026–2028 loan mix. If goals ultimately push more mission lending without pricing clarity, expect pressure on primary-secondary spreads and potential widening in the MBS basis until specifics land. If goals are looser than rhetoric implies, originators may pivot back toward prime/confirming comfort—and CRT spreads could tighten on lower perceived tail risk.

• Homebuilders and rate-sensitive equities: Affordability rhetoric without rate or price relief won’t unlock incremental demand by itself. With prices up +2.3% YoY, builders’ entry-level exposure remains constrained unless the final rule translates into concrete credit expansion or subsidy mechanics.

• Banks and mortgage REITs: Watch warehouse lines and MSR valuations. If the rumored “three-year high” in applications were real—and it might be, but we weren’t shown the data—higher lock volumes would lift origination margins. But without published spread metrics, durability is unclear. For mREITs, opacity on GSE mix and CRT supply complicates positioning.

• Policy risk premium: Politicized framing without analytics raises the odds of future recalibration. Markets will price that as a governance discount until the rule text and scorecards make the rounds.

The Investor Playbook: What to Watch and How to Position

• Demand the numbers. Before re-risking, look for the actual 2026–2028 goal thresholds, enforcement mechanisms, and any GSE scorecard updates. Absence of hard targets is a red flag.

• Watch the monthly HPI and payment metrics. The August print was +0.4% MoM and +2.3% YoY. If prices continue to drift up while policy leans on access, risk layering may rise—favorable for CRT carry if pricing compensates, but a warning for tight g-fee cohorts.

• Track primary-secondary spreads and lock data. If “spreads compress” is real, it will show in lender pricing and MBA rate-lock indices. Improved throughput helps originators and specified pools; otherwise, keep MBS exposure neutral with optionality via TBA hedges.

• Prefer balance-sheet quality over narratives. For now, overweight higher-credit specified pools and short the policy hype. In CRT, favor tranches with robust subordination until the rule clarifies cohort risk.

• Regional differentiation. With MoM ranges from -0.8% (Pacific) to +1.2% (Middle Atlantic) and YoY from -0.6% to +6.3%, local mix will matter. Builders and lenders with Middle Atlantic tilt benefit more if policy nudges access.

The market will forgive a lot—except guessing. Until the Dec 23 promises come with targets, math, and mechanisms, treat the communications shift as a signal: messaging is up, measurement is down. Price the uncertainty, lean into quality, and let the data—not the slogans—set your risk budget.