Aiming to attract new investors, Freddie Mac announced a new program for auctioning off pools of deeply delinquent non-performing loans from its mortgage investment portfolio.
The new program, called Extended Timeline Pool Offering, or EXPO, will target smaller investors by making smaller pools of non-performing loans available in addition to the larger pools of NPLs that Freddie recently began selling.
Freddie Mac also made its first EXPO offering available. According to Freddie Mac, the first EXPO offering is a pool of deeply delinquent NPLs that carry an aggregate unpaid principal balance of $35 million.
The loans offered for sale are all located in Miami-Dade County, Florida.
According to Freddie, the EXPO pools carry a timeline between transaction’s announcement and the date bids are due that is extended approximately two weeks from the typical marketing period for the larger NPL pools.
This is intended to provide smaller potential investors extra time to secure funds to participate in the auctions.
In a release, Freddie said that all eligible bidders, including private investors, minority-owned and women-owned businesses, non-profits and neighborhood advocacy funds, are encouraged to bid.
The winning bidder will be determined on the basis of economics, subject to meeting Freddie Mac's internal reserve levels. To participate, all potential bidders are required to be approved by Freddie Mac to access the secure data room containing information about the NPLs and to bid on the NPL pool, Freddie said.
Bids are due from qualified buyers on June 2, 2015, and the transaction is expected to settle in July 2015.
Freddie’s latest sale NPLs meet the directive set by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which outlined the new requirements for sales of NPLs by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to ensure the loans are transferred to capable mortgage servicers.
Freddie recently disclosed that it had already sold severely delinquent loans through several transactions in the past six months, including a $985 million NPL pool in March.
"FHFA expects that with these enhanced requirements, NPL sales by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will result in more favorable outcomes for borrowers and local communities, while also reducing losses to the Enterprises and, therefore, to taxpayers," FHFA Director Melvin Watt said recently. "Under the requirements announced, servicers must consider borrowers for a range of alternatives to foreclosure."
