Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley and fellow AG Eric Schneiderman out of New York bashed FHFA leader Ed DeMarco in a Politico article Tuesday. The gist of their opinion piece is they want DeMarco to get the boot.
The two AGs said they don’t have anything personally against the acting director of the FHFA, but they believe he’s hindering the nation’s opportunity for a full economic recovery and hurting families in the process.
“It is time for new leadership and a new direction at Fannie and Freddie,” they noted in the article.
According to the AGs, 10.4 million properties, or 21.5% of all homes, were in negative equity, or classified as underwater mortgages, in the fourth quarter of 2012.
“Underwater homeowners are more likely to wind up in foreclosure. Even if they avoid foreclosure, they are saving every penny to try to pay down their debt. They can’t spend at local businesses. They can’t move for a better job or invest in starting a small business. They are trapped under America’s $628 billion mountain of negative equity,” the AGs wrote in Politico.
Schneiderman and Coakley place this dilemma at the feet of the FHFA, noting that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are refusing to allow principal write-downs for underwater mortgages due to DeMarco’s failure to budge on the issue.
“This failed policy is a direct impediment to our economic recovery and stands in the way of our efforts to provide much-needed assistance to homeowners across the country,” noted the AGs.
DeMarco has been the target of criticism for some time now. In fact, the two AGs recently joined seven other attorneys general who called for President Obama to replace the acting director.
