Lockhart steps down from FHFA

Edward DeMarco has been appointed acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) in Washington, DC, taking over from James Lockhart, who announced his resignation yesterday.

DeMarco previously served as deputy director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (Ofheo), and as chief operating officer and senior deputy director for housing mission and goals at the FHFA.

Lockhart became director of Ofheo in May 2006 and then of the FHFA in July 2008 when the Housing and Economic Recovery Act was signed into law. The FHFA was created to provide an empowered regulator to oversee vital components of the US's secondary mortgage markets - Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks. But, shortly after the FHFA's creation, the deepening credit crisis forced both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into government conservatorship on September 6, 2008. Lockhart subsequently oversaw the departure of both companies' chief executives, along with a significant overhaul of their structures and operations. Earlier in the year, as head of Ofheo, he had allowed both companies to cut their capital reserves to buy up hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of mortgage-backed securities, in an attempt to offset the subprime collapse.

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