In other news, Fannie Mae has announced a new program today. It’s called “Deed for Lease”. It’s only for owner occupants, and they must be released from all second liens. Troubled borrowers can sign over the deed of their homes and rent back for the current market rate. Borrowers have to prove that the new rental rate is no more than 31% of their gross income. So what are we talking about in numbers here? In the first half of this year Fannie Mae took about 57,000 homes into foreclosures as REOs. In the same period they did about 1200 deed-in-lieu of foreclosures, but those borrowers didn't rent the homes back. This new program will allow banks to collect income on their assets and “wait out” the market and try to sell the asset when the prices come back higher to offset their write downs. Fannie Mae plans to hire property management companies to manage the maintenance requirements on these home