Twenty Years Long and What Do You Get?
According to a group of Senate Democrats, the answer to this question for a new class of federally-backed mortgages is “out of debt.” A new bill thus creates 20-year FRMs with 30-year FRM amortization schedules for low-income, first-generation borrowers. Treasury would then make up the difference to lenders and investors.
Getting a bit ahead of FHFA’s new equitable-finance mandate and its express demand for appraisal equity, Freddie Mac has released a detailed study of one of the most significant barriers to housing-finance equity: discriminatory appraisal practices that reduce the chances for wealth accumulation. The study finds demonstrable differences in appraisals for like-kind homes that correlate strongly with race and ethnicity, but provides no guide to either causation or cure.
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How Discriminatory are Appraisals?
Getting a bit ahead of FHFA’s new equitable-finance mandate and its express demand for appraisal equity, Freddie Mac has released a detailed study of one of the most significant barriers to housing-finance equity: discriminatory appraisal practices that reduce the chances for wealth accumulation. The study finds demonstrable differences in appraisals for like-kind homes that correlate strongly with race and ethnicity, but provides no guide to either causation or cure.
Warren Renews Demand for Wells Fargo Break-Up
Renewing her attack against Wells Fargo, Sen. Warren (D-MA) has called on the Fed to retract the company’s financial holding company (FHC) status.
Treasury/FHFA Reset the GSEs’ Role in U.S. Housing Finance
As we forecast earlier this year, Treasury and the FHFA today suspended — but did not abrogate — key aspects of the Trump Administration’s final changes to the standards governing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under the PSPA.
Fundamental Questions About the Future of Housing Finance
In the late 1980s, Freddie Mac challenged fundamental assumptions about its public mission when it purchased tobacco stock to enrich its portfolio and, shortly thereafter, briefly obtained a statutory change eliminating the private mortgage insurance industry. Combined with Fannie Mae’s increasing flights into high finance, this persuaded Congress in 1992 to create the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, which at least pretended to regulate the GSEs, and to mandate an affordable-housing mission, which pretended to force Fannie and Freddie back to the public purpose on which their privileges rested. Despite sweeping safety-and-soundness reforms in 2008, there matters largely rested until Sandra Thompson took over the Federal Housing Finance Agency this June
Safe as Houses?
Soaring house prices have of course aroused lofty housing-bubble worries. Two new analyses from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York aim at reassurance but nonetheless offer some new, cautionary comparisons to the last time a housing bubble burst.
Gensler Highlights Fair Pricing in Anti-Gamification Push
After issuing a digital-engagement practices RFI late last month, SEC Chairman Gensler today expanded his concerns to include ensuring fair pricing and eliminating what he called historical biases as he pursues an array of anti-gamification reforms.
HFSC Prepares Housing Infrastructure Push
HFSC majority staff today released the staff memo detailing the $327 billion package to be marked up on September 13 as part of the omnibus reconciliation bill. As anticipated, the package is almost exclusively housing focused, reflecting Chairwoman Waters’ (D-CA) belief that she has a commitment from the Biden Administration to address housing infrastructure in the overall spending packages.
FSOC Considers Risks It Dare Not Name
Although Members of Congress have long called for greater FSOC transparency, the Financial Stability Council again met today in a closed session.