The U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve pumped a total of $1.2 trillion in investments into the U.S. mortgage market in fiscal 2009, according to a report by the government last week. The Federal Housing Finance Agency gave a full accounting of the infusions so far — most of them to the troubled government-sponsored mortgage enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But in a speech at the New England Mortgage Bankers Conference in Providence, Rhode Island, the agency’s acting director, Edward DeMarco, argued that another three quarters of a trillion dollars was available if necessary. The amount already spent remained impressive, however. By the fiscal year’s end on Sept. 30, the Treasury Department had given Fannie and Freddie $96 billion in cash for preferred stock shares, and another $181 billion to purchase underperforming mortgage-backed securities from the firms. The lion’s share of the outlays, though, came from the Fed’s coffers. The national bank has paid $885 billion for mortgage securities, most of them issued by Fannie or Freddie, and also has given the GSEs $131 billion to buy up their debt obligations. DeMarco called these infusions a “considerable backstop” and said they empowered the firms to play “a critical role in bringing some measure of liquidity to the mortgage market.

In a separate development, Freddie Mac warned prospective buyers of its foreclosed properties that bids needed to be in by Oct. 30 to collect on an offer that would cover part of the sale’s closing costs. Freddie has 34,700 in real estate owned properties. Buyers also must close on their homes by Dec. 31 to qualify for the closing cost discount. “Every home shopper should know there are only 30 days left to save potentially thousands of dollars in transaction costs when they buy a HomeSteps home,” Freddie vice president Chris Bowden said in a statement.