David Schwartz, managing member of Waterton Associates in Chicago, concurred that it's likely very little will change for apartment financing in the near term. The leadership at Freddie, he said, has indicated that it will remain 'business as usual,' and the firm continues to fund loans at the same pricing and underwriting levels as they have been.

[IMGCAP(2)]"Right now, I'm really not staying up at night," he said. "The new regulator, FIFA and the Treasury have told Fannie and Freddie that they're just as committed to rental housing as they are to single-family housing, so there's no change in their edict."However, he did add that a few side effects of the GSEs' issues that will benefit multifamily borrowers is that Freddie Mac reference notes are trading down. "There is also a chance we may see spreads come down," he said. "If anything, the securities are going to trade at better pricing from Freddie and Fannie's standpoint. That may be passed on to their borrowers. Net net, I think this is positive for our industry, although it's very early to tell."

Most of the concern, it seems, centered around whether the move to rescue the GSEs will help stabilize the firms and the housing market, as well as what will happen to the mortgage giants once they're back on their own two feet in 2010. "I imagine the GSEs have a tough tightrope to walk right now," said Tom Toomey, president and CEO of UDR Inc. in Denver. "between rates, the housing market's recovery and the Feds' new oversight. Our approach to the situation is to stay in contact and not try to press for deals. It seems like right now it's a stop-gap solution to get through this housing crisis. But it'll be interesting, once we're through this, to see what happens to Fannie and Freddie."

There was also some discussions regarding potential solutions being considered by the government and industry for the GSEs. One was the possibility of splitting them up from two entities into several in an effort to spread the risk, though that idea is still in infancy. One of the largest mitigating factors in any solution, however, the participants agreed, is the outcome of the upcoming election.

"We think this action raises a few key questions," said Toomey. "Is this going to really stabilize the housing market? People are not going to go back to consuming when they're worried about their jobs and their homes losing value. Will this arrest the home-value slide? Will that then lead to more rational lending practices? Will Fannie and Freddie be able to affect that result? They can't do a thing about jobs, but they certainly can do something about house prices. It seems to me that that's their first and primary objective, and they're going to do it by flooding the market with about as cheap a paper as they can afford. And if they have success, whatever administration wins will need to continue to support that objective."

Next week, the Multifamily Page will take a look at what these experts had to say on the economy and its effect on apartment fundamentals.