Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are expected to begin repaying taxpayers for their bailout faster than initially projected, in part because of an improving housing market, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the companies' federal regulator, released a report on Friday that estimated they will pay between $32 billion and $78 billion to the U.S. Treasury through 2015. The baseline forecast assumes that the companies would end up costing taxpayers $76 billion by the end of 2015, down from the current tab of $142 billion. Since the companies were placed into conservatorship by the government in 2008, they have drawn nearly $188 billion from the Treasury and paid back $46 billion in dividends.
