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FHLBank System, Price Deliver Message of Support at Convention:
$55 Million in Down Payment, Closing Cost Assistance Announced

Speaking on behalf of the twelve-Bank Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLBank) System, John R. Price, president and chief executive officer of FHLBank Pittsburgh, said that, as the first government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) created by Congress to focus on housing, the FHLBank System remains committed to supporting homeownership during all economic cycles.

The announcement was made November 10 at the National Association of Realtors (NAR) 2006 annual convention in New Orleans. Price is the first FHLBank president to speak at an NAR convention, joining two other panelists from Freddie Mac and Harvard University for the NAR's Regulatory Issues Forum.

With a combined balance sheet of approximately $1 trillion, the FHLBank System is "one of the largest borrowers in the international capital markets" and enjoys "the best rates in the capital markets" due to its triple-A rating. As a result of this financial strength, Price said, FHLBanks are uniquely positioned to provide constant, low-cost liquidity to approximately 8,000 member financial institutions across the country so they can get money into the hands of homebuyers.

"We're the anti-credit crunch GSE — a reliable, readily accessible funding partner whose first priority is assuring an adequate source of funding for housing, now and in the future," Price said. Approximately $638 billion in advances, or low-cost loans, had been made to community lenders by the end of the second quarter of 2006, Price said, helping to get Americans into their own homes. Moreover, as part of the FHLBank System's congressional mandate in support of affordable housing, more than $2 billion in grants for approximately 450,000 units of new or rehabilitated housing have been awarded since 1990. These grants continue to benefit the homeless, low- and very-low-income, disabled, frail elderly and other individuals, Price said, "making a profound difference in the lives of your neighbors."

Price used the occasion of the NAR convention to announce that approximately $55 million in grants for down payment and closing costs (the vast majority for first-time homebuyers) has been approved by FHLBanks so far this year — the latest example of how FHLBanks continue to support the housing market in good times and bad. "We expect that many of these homebuyers will eventually trade up and come back to you for repeat business," he told the REALTORS®.