Christopher Tawa

Christopher Tawa worked at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Office of Housing and Regulatory Policy, from March 2012 to May 2016 as head of multifamily policy for the Regulator and Conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In that role, Mr. Tawa advised on all aspects of multifamily policy and strategy, and oversaw the Enterprises’ multifamily business operations. He led the rewrite of the 2015 – 2017 multifamily affordable housing goals regulation, development of the multifamily directives within the proposed Duty to Serve implementing regulation and the agency response to multifamily housing finance reform issues.

For over 2½ years before joining FHFA, Mr. Tawa was Senior Advisor to the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multifamily Housing Programs at HUD Headquarters in Washington, DC.  In that role, he served as principal advisor on finance and policy issues affecting the FHA multifamily insurance programs and was responsible for providing advice on programmatic and organizational issues regarding the MAP lending program.

For over 5 years before joining FHA, Mr. Tawa was Senior Vice President for the Affordable Debt Group at MMA Financial (n/k/a JLL Multifamily Lending). MMA was then the highest volume equity investor and debt provider for Low Income Housing Tax Credit properties in the country and Mr. Tawa was head of loan originations using Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA credit enhanced and private placement tax exempt bonds and taxable permanent and construction loans for affordable housing transactions nationwide.  For over 3 years before joining MMA, Mr. Tawa was Principal and head of Specialized Lending Products at Lend Lease Real Estate Investments Mortgage Capital division (n/k/a Wells Fargo Multifamily Capital). His group originated loans for affordable and seniors housing properties using Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other capital sources.  For the prior 3 years, Mr. Tawa was Senior Managing Director for Affordable Housing Debt at Banc One Capital Funding (n/k/a Red Mortgage Capital).

For the prior 5 years, Mr. Tawa was the National Director of Multifamily Targeted Affordable Housing at Fannie Mae in Washington, DC, where he managed the development and implementation of national debt products for financing multifamily affordable housing properties, and was responsible for helping meet annual affordable housing lending goals.  During his tenure, he oversaw the tripling of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing loan production under the DUS lending program.  Prior to Fannie Mae, Mr. Tawa had been with the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, Community Development Administration, and the Massachusetts Executive Office of Communities and Development.

Mr. Tawa graduated from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (MPA, 1987), Northeastern University School of Law (Juris Doctor, 1979), and the University of Massachusetts at Boston (BA, Magna Cum Laude, 1976).