REFinBlog

Editor: David Reiss
Cornell Law School

November 16, 2017

Thank You, Director Cordray

By David Reiss

Richard Cordray has announced that he will be stepping down as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He has been a lightning rod for critics of the Bureau. Those of us who believe that predatory behavior was endemic in … Continue reading

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November 16, 2017 in Regulation | Permalink | No Comments

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

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November 15, 2017 in Regulation | Permalink | No Comments

November 14, 2017

The Future of Public Housing

By David Reiss

The Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley has posted Lessons for the Future of Public Housing: Assessing the Early Implementation of the Rental Assistance Demonstration Program. Housing policy analysts have bemoaned the chronic underfunding of public housing for decades … Continue reading

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November 14, 2017 in Regulation | Permalink | No Comments

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

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November 10, 2017 in Regulation | Permalink | No Comments

November 9, 2017

Your Lender, The Federal Reserve Board

By David Reiss

Laurie Goodman and Bing Bai at the Urban Institute have posted Normalizing the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet The Impact on the Mortgage-Backed Securities Market. It is quite extraordinary to realize that the Federal Reserve owns nearly a third of outstanding residential … Continue reading

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November 9, 2017 in Regulation | Permalink | No Comments

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

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November 7, 2017 in Regulation | Permalink | No Comments

October 31, 2017

Relegating Consumer Protection To The Shadows

By David Reiss

The Department of the Treasury released its report on Asset Management and Insurance, which follows on the heels of its report on the capital markets. The latest report calls for replacing the term “shadow banking” with “market based finance.” (63) The … Continue reading

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October 31, 2017 in Regulation | Permalink | No Comments