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» VISIT US ONLINE @ DSNEWS.COM 95 New York RESULTS THROUGH REAL TIME SOLUTIONS. Strength Through Innovative Leadership. PROVIDING DEFAULT REAL ESTATE SOLUTIONS SINCE 1988 Todd Yovino Broker/Owner Island Advantage Realty, LLC Serving Metro New York & Long Island Todd@iarny.com | 631-820-3400 www.islandadvantage.com grants from the originating lender are allowed, will be raised to 3 percent. HUD, Trump Join Forces to Aid Disaster Recovery in Florida, Texas e newly enacted Consolidated Appro- priations Act of 2017 will provide $400 million to areas that are in need of recovery from major disasters such as earthquakes or flooding. In August, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson announced an additional $178.5 million would be provided through the Community Development Block Grant-Di- saster Recovery Program to help states recover from disasters in 2015 and 2016. So far, $343 million has been provided for disaster recovery, with the remaining $57 mil- lion to be allocated sometime in the future to areas that may experience disaster. "Clearly, there are hard-hit communities in these states that need more help to recover from the devastating floods they experienced over the past two years," Carson said. "Today, we make another investment in the future of these com- munities and to help our neighbors in need." Broken down by state, the grants are al- located to Florida ($57,530,000), West Virginia ($42,383,000), North Carolina ($31,862,000), South Carolina ($27,769,000), and Texas ($9,785,000) for 2016, and for 2015, Texas ($8,233,000)—with a specific focus on San Marcos, Texas, ($978,000) which experienced extreme flooding midway through the year. rough supplemental spending measures, Congress appropriated a combined $3 billion through HUD's CDBG Disaster Recovery Program. e largest amount of grant money has been given to Louisiana following 2016 flooding in Baton Rouge and the surrounding parishes, totaling $1.7 billion in recovery funds. "Today, HUD makes another investment to support long-term disaster recovery in com- munities that continue to experience significant and persistent need," Carson said of the May allocation of grant funds. "Supporting the people and places still struggling to rebuild is a top priority at HUD." Fannie Mae SFR Entrance on the Horizon Freddie Mac might be following in Fan- nie Mae's footsteps, according to a recently published New York Times article delving into the single-family rental market, now that the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has given the Enterprise the go-ahead to shop around. According to the piece, the bank wants to supply up to $1 billion for affordable hous- ing rentals to mid-sized landlords, with the possibility of bringing in nonprofits as well. Affordability is the Enterprise's main goal, Freddie Mac VP David D. Leopold said in a statement. Freddie's proposed deal would be dif- ferent than Fannie Mae's, which reached a $1 billion financing deal with Invitation Homes, one of the largest private equity- backed landlords in the country. e firm holds 50,000 single-family rental homes in 13 major markets and had an initial public offering that netted $1.7 billion around the time of signing. ere's still plenty of rental homes to go around, though. e New York Times reports that there are 17 million homes currently being rented, a figure that has grown from 11 million in 2007. Freddie Mac would like to find itself somewhere in the middle. Stated the article: "e vast majority of rentals are still man- aged by mom-and-pop operators who own a small number of homes. And Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have long provided financing to small investors. But financing has been hard to come by for nonprofit housing groups and midsize investor landlords who have had to rely mainly on private-equity-backed firms for financing." e goal of the move would be to add some stability to midsized landlords by guaranteeing loans, thereby encouraging more traditional lenders to get into this underrepresented portion of the single- family rental market. e Senate Commit- tee on Banking, Housing, & Urban Affairs has recently been calling for reforms to the Government-Sponsored Enterprises, and the move to single-family rental homes could be a step in that direction. e FHFA will still have to approve of any financing deal Freddie Mac comes up with though, and as of now has only approved of Freddie's and Fannie's move to the rental market in limited quantities. e agency had previously denied Freddie Mac in 2012, when the Enterprise looked to finance buyers of foreclosed homes, citing concerns that low-cost loans would hurt the banks and encourage home flipping. Freddie Mac did not return DS News' request for comment on the matter.

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