Executives from different parts of the credit union industry are hard at work to build credit unions' share of the U.S. mortgage market even higher than the record 8% they achieved in the first quarter of this year.

Callahan and Associates has challenged credit unions to pool their housing finance efforts to move the industry's share of the housing finance market to 20% by the year 2020.

Jay Johnson, executive vice president at the Washington-based consultancy, said the efforts to reach that goal are spread across different parts of the industry, including working with credit unions to get them to start or build existing housing finance programs and looking outside the industry for possible sources of additional housing finance funds.

Judy Sandberg, president of Mortgage Liquidity Solutions, said her housing finance CUSO is hard at work developing different vehicles that could be used to bring credit union-issued mortgage loans to the capital markets, particularly ones which could provide an alternative source of housing finance to the now-conserved Government Sponsored Entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“We are actively working with investors who are looking at credit union mortgage loans, kicking the tires and looking under the hood and I think they would be very interested in an investment vehicle based on those loans,” Sandberg said.

She said MLS has so far put together investment packages that have allowed credit unions to invest in mortgage loan participations.

Sandberg explained that finding sources of funds in the capital markets was crucial to both help credit unions have sources of housing finance in the face of continued uncertainty about the GSEs and to provide them a way of financing mortgage loans that might not conform to the GSE's rules for sale in their mortgage market.