REFinBlog

Editor: David Reiss
Brooklyn Law School

December 20, 2017

Are The Stars Aligning For Fannie And Freddie Reform?

By David Reiss

Law360 published my op ed, Are The Stars Aligning For Fannie And Freddie Reform? It reads, There has been a lot of talk of the closed-door discussions in the Senate about a reform plan for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two mammoth housing … Continue reading

December 11, 2017

Challenges for Modern Housing Markets

By David Reiss

                  I will be speaking in a free American Bar Association webinar tomorrow, Challenges for Modern Housing Markets: Our current housing system is not sustainable in terms of the market, residential tenure, cost … Continue reading

December 4, 2017

Net Losses in FHA’s Annual Management Report

By David Reiss

The Federal Housing Administration released its Annual Management Report for Fiscal Year 2017. As always, it is good to review what the FHA has accomplished and the challenges it faces: FHA is the largest provider of mortgage insurance in the … Continue reading

November 20, 2017

FHA Annual Check-up

By David Reiss

The Department of Housing and Urban Development released its Annual Report to Congress Regarding the Financial Status of the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund. The MMIF fund is the FHA’s main vehicle for insuring mortgages. As we saw last week, … Continue reading

November 15, 2017

The FHA’s Ailing Reverse Mortgage Program

By David Reiss

The Fiscal Year 2017 Independent Actuarial Review of the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund: Cash Flow Net Present Value from Home Equity Conversion Mortgage Insurance in Force has been released. It has some bad news: FHA provides reverse mortgage insurance through the HECM … Continue reading

November 10, 2017

How Important Is Skin in The Game?

By David Reiss

Haoyang Liu has posted a paper to SSRN that challenges the effectiveness of skin-in-the-game market discipline: Does Skin-in-the-Game Discipline Risk Management? Evidence from Mortgage Insurance. The abstract reads, Many mortgage reform proposals suggest replacing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs) … Continue reading

November 7, 2017

Insuring Sustainable Housing

By David Reiss

I posted Insuring Sustainable Housing to SSRN (and BePress). The abstract reads, Today’s FHA suffered from many of the same unrealistic underwriting assumptions that have done in so many lenders during the 2000s. It had also been harmed, like other lenders, … Continue reading