WSJ What’s News
How a Secret Mortgage Blacklist Is Making It Hard for Condo Owners to Sell
Mon, 17 Mar 2025
P.M. Edition for Mar. 17. Condo sales are falling through when would-be buyers find that the property they want to purchase is on a mostly secret mortgage blacklist maintained by Fannie Mae. WSJ insurance reporter Jean Eaglesham tells us about the list and why it is growing. Plus, President Trump lays the groundwork for investigating people pardoned by President Joe Biden. And recent market volatility is leaving even hedge funds floundering. We hear from WSJ special writer Gregory Zuckerman about the funds’ impact on the broader market and what signals they will be looking at in the near future. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the secret mortgage blacklist affecting condo sales?
How a secret mortgage blacklist leaves homeowners stuck with condos they can't sell.
We're seeing these developments, particularly in areas of high risk, so disaster prone areas where the insurers are pushing up the cost of insurance quite dramatically.
Plus, why last week's market volatility made even the hedge funds flounder. And President Trump lays the groundwork to investigate people pardoned by Biden. It's Monday, March 17th. I'm Alex Osola for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.
Retail sales rose modestly in February, offering reassurances that while consumer spending has slowed this year, it hasn't stopped completely. Sales edged up a seasonally adjusted 0.2% from the prior month, missing economists' expectations. The slimmer gain in February was concentrated in sales at automobile and auto part dealers. The details of the report were mixed.
Sales rose at grocery stores and non-store retailers, a category that's dominated by online retailers, while they fell at electronics and appliance retailers, department stores, and restaurants and bars. Those are a sign that Americans are scaling back on nice-to-haves. Meanwhile, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, said that higher U.S.
tariffs on imports are set to slow economic growth and push inflation higher around the world. In its quarterly report published today, the OECD said that the U.S. economy will now likely grow by 2.2 percent this year and 1.6 percent next, less than previously forecast. Despite the weaker-than-expected retail sales data, U.S. markets were up today, building on Friday's gains.
The Nasdaq rose about 0.3 percent, the S&P 500 ticked up roughly 0.6 percent, and the Dow ended the day about 0.9 percent higher. So today, markets may be up, but as we've been reporting, they've been volatile recently. Last week's market whipsaw, during which recession fears grew and traders were confused about the market's direction, was an especially wild ride for hedge funds.
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Chapter 2: Why are hedge funds struggling with recent market volatility?
They floundered like everyone else and even helped drive stocks further down. According to Goldman Sachs, last Monday's market drop witnessed one of the largest reductions in risk by hedge funds in the past 15 years. WSJ special writer Greg Zuckerman joins me now. So Greg, when hedge funds undo bets en masse like this, what kind of impact does it have on the broader market?
Yeah, so hedge funds, they control a lot of money, but they also have a lot of influence. And it's largely because not only do they manage a lot of money, but they borrow a lot of money. So when they head for the exits, then it affects the broader market, but it especially has an impact on specific stocks.
Everything from Apple to Alibaba, a lot of high-tech names, the momentum names, as we call them.
So what does all this movement in the past week signal about whether or not a recession might be coming?
Chapter 3: What signals are hedge funds watching for future market movements?
Well, the odds are going up. And you see that in the economic figures, consumer confidence, for example. You see that in slowing retail sales and such. But you also see in the markets. The market is charged with anticipating the future. They often get it wrong. But the market is sending a message that we should be nervous about the outlook for the future of the economy.
So what are some of the factors that hedge funds are going to be paying attention to in the coming weeks and months?
You want to look at the Federal Reserve, but even more importantly, it's all about Donald Trump. And what's really difficult for traders today is to get into his mind and to understand how serious he is about tariffs. Donald Trump has not signaled that he's going to use these as tools, per se. He seems to be more comfortable with an all-out trade war, and that gets to the nervousness out there.
That was WSJ special writer Greg Zuckerman. Thank you, Greg.
Oh, great being here.
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Chapter 4: How is the secret mortgage blacklist impacting condo owners?
Coming up, a secret mortgage blacklist is leaving a growing number of homeowners with unsellable condos. More after the break. Condo owners across the U.S. are being faced with a nightmare scenario. They're about to sell their property, only to learn that their buyer is falling through because the property is on a mostly secret mortgage blacklist maintained by Fannie Mae.
A spokeswoman for Fannie disagreed with characterizing Fannie's database of projects, which includes properties that both do and don't meet its lending criteria, as a blacklist.
According to condo lawyer Stephen Marcus, who, along with other industry legal and finance players, has access to the rapidly growing list, the number of properties that fail to meet Fannie Mae's standards increased from a few hundred developments in 2021 to more than 5,000 this month. I'm joined now by WSJ insurance reporter Jean Eaglesham. Jean, what could get a property put on this list?
The issues with a property that can make them blacklisted include structural issues, such as safety concerns, but also financial issues like cash reserves. And increasingly in recent years, a bigger and bigger problem is insurance.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who are mortgage finance giants who are central to the market, are increasingly saying that the coverage these developments have isn't good enough for their requirements. Now, that really matters because the main mortgage lenders, they look to sell their loans to Fannie and Freddie.
If they can't sell them, then the lenders will turn around and say, actually, we can't give you the most common type of loan. That leaves buyers trying to get a different type of loan, which is often more expensive, may require more money up front, or they may just give up on the transaction.
We should note that a Freddie spokesman said that the company doesn't maintain a list of condo developments that don't meet its criteria. So who's actually being affected by this?
We're seeing these developments, particularly in areas of high risk, so disaster prone areas where the insurers are pushing up the cost of insurance quite dramatically and also cutting the coverage. And it's those cuts to insurance coverage that are causing a lot of the problems.
Condo owners in these developments where they're blacklisted are worried about how that's going to impact their value of their properties, what's going to happen when they do come to sale. But what we found is that if they look to get an insurance policy that does meet Fannie's standards, in some cases the rate that's being asked for that is unaffordable.
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