Author Archives: Serenna McCloud

Thursday’s Advocacy & Think Tank Round-Up

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Hello readers,

Due to  a technical issue Thursday’s Round-up was delayed until today.

  • The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has released its Pending Home Sales Index for September.  According to NAR pending home sales are down 2.3% from August, this is the second straight month in which the statistic is down.  Year over year it is still up for the 13th straight month.
  • NYU’s Furman Center has released a policy paper series Multifamily Housing Resilience which points out the continued vulnerability of multifamily housing in NYC and Miami  – both cities have a large percentage of multifamily dwellings in floodplains.  One consequence, detailed in The Price of Resilience, is that affordable housing is caught between a rock (unaffordable flood insurance) and a hard place (unaffordable flood prevention upgrades).

Tuesday’s Regulatory & Legislative Round-Up

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  • The Department of Housing and Urban Development has proposed a new rule, Quid Pro Quo and Hostile Environment Harassment and Liability for Discriminatory Housing Practices Under the Fair Housing Act.  HUD seeks to clarify the standards for use in investigating and adjudicating accusations of harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, familial status or disability under the Fair Housing Act. The proposed standards would specify how HUD would evaluate complaints of quid pro quo (“this for that”) harassment and hostile environment harassment and provide for uniform treatment of Fair Housing Act claims raising such allegations in the federal courts. According to the rule “quid pro quo” and “hostile environment harassment,” as prohibited under the Fair Housing Act, it also adds illustrations of discriminatory housing practices that constitute such harassment.
  • The U.S. Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund has announced the availability of  $5 billion for the 2015 allocation round for New Market Tax Credits (NMTC) Program (applications are available until 12/16/2015). The NMTC program is used to offer 7 year tax credits to attract private investment in the development of low income housing and is widely considered to be a very effective tool for the development of affordable housing.

Thursday’s Advocacy & Think Tank Round-Up

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  • The Cornerstone Partnership has developed the Inclusionary Calculator, which “allows users to model a real or hypothetical housing development and then add affordable housing requirements in combination with different development incentives.”  The Antlantic Citilab has argued that this tool shows that affordable housing is not only feasible but also profitable, almost anywhere.  This fact, they argue, makes the decision on whether or not to develop real estate in an  inclusionary fashion a moral choice and not an economic one.
  • Congratulations to the Empire Community Loan Fund, one of the largest not-for-profit loan funds and Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), which has been selected for inclusion in the Impact Assets 50 (IA50). The IA 50 is an annual showcase of Impact Investment Fund Managers.  The Empire Community Loan Fund issues debt instruments to support affordable housing development, among other things.
  • Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies’ Remodeling Futures Program has released it’s Lead Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) for the Third Quarter of 2015 in which it predicts annual spending growth for home improvements will accelerate from 2.4% last quarter to 6.8% in the second quarter of 2016. The next LIRA release date is January 21, 2016.

Tuesday’s Regulatory & Legislative Update

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  • The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has finalized a Rule to expand reporting requirements imposed upon financial institutions under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). Dodd-Frank included a mandate directing the CFPB to collect metrics to allow, among other things, a better understanding of the mortgage market, quicker identification of trends, and spotting of discriminatory patterns and practices. The CFPB also hopes to use the data to avoid some of the mistakes in the mortgage market which led to the Financial Crisis.  The CFPB also has a site containing resources to help financial institutions comply.
  • CFPB has released the prepared remarks of Director Richard Corday, which he delivered before the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Annual Convention. In discussing the new agency’s work since Dodd-Frank, Corday asserted that the CFPB has worked hard to create a “set of rules that protect prospective homebuyers in a manner that never existed in the past, while supporting responsible lenders against those who led a race to the bottom in underwriting standards.  We now have a system in place that consumers can trust in a way they could not trust in the marketplace a decade ago.”
  • The Terwilliger Foundation hosted a Housing Summit in New Hampshire where Presidential Hopefuls, including, among others: Martin O’Malley, Chris Christie, George Pataki), Mike Huckabee, and Rand Paul.  The Enterprise Community Partners Blog has a great piece which describes the affordable housing policy proposals of the various candidates. 

Friday’s Government Reports

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  • The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has released a Discussion paper Gentrification and Residential Mobility in Philadelphia the study uses consumer credit data to study the economic effects of gentrification on existing lower income residents.   The study finds the following:  “[R]esidents in gentrifying neighborhoods have slightly higher mobility rates than those in nongentrifying neighborhoods, but they do not have a higher risk of moving to a lower-income neighborhood. Moreover, gentrification is associated with some positive changes in the financial health of residents as measured by individuals’ credit scores. However, when more vulnerable residents (low-score, longer-term residents, or residents without mortgages) move from gentrifying neighborhoods, they are more likely to move to lower-income neighborhoods and neighborhoods with lower values on quality-of-life indicators. The results reveal the nuances of mobility in gentrifying neighborhoods and demonstrate how the positive and negative consequences of gentrification are unevenly distributed.”

Thursday’s Advocacy & Think-Tank Round-Up

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Tuesday’s Regulatory & Legislative Round-Up

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  • A bill to reform Housing Assistance including programs like section 8 and project based assistance was introduced in the House Financial Services Housing Subcommittee by Republican Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO). The bill (HR 3700) seeks to streamline costs to increase efficiency and to reduce energy and water waste.
  • The Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Texas Republican Jeb Hensarling, will be hosting a Hearing entitled The Future of Housing in America: 50 years of HUD and its Impact on Federal Housing Policy. The hearing is scheduled for Oct. 22 at 10 am and Rep. Hensarling has released a statement calling for public input. Hensarling characterizes HUD as having failed to live up to its mission, despite 1.6 trillion dollars in spending, he then calls for innovation in solving the generational cycle of poverty which, in his view, is the real issue.