December 2, 2015
Wednesday’s Academic Roundup
- Inflation and Activity – Two Explorations and Their Monetary Policy Implications, Olivier J. Blanchard, Eugenio Cerutti & Lawrence H. Summers, HKS Working Paper No. 070.
- Real Estate Value Impacts from Fracking: Industry Response and Proper Analytical Techniques, Richard Roddewig & Rebel A. Cole, Real Estate Issues 39(3), 2014, 6–20.
- How Auctions Amplify House-Price Fluctuations, Alina Arefeva.
- Marketing and Product Description: Value Added in the Real Estate Market, Sebastien Gay & Allen T. Zhang.
- Strategic Information Disclosure and Bank Lending, Sumit Agarwal, Souphala Chomsisengphet & Qi (Susie) Wang.
- S. Bank Market Structure: Evolving Nature and Implications, David G. McMillan & Fiona Jayne McMillan.
- Before a Fall: Impacts of Earthquake Regulation and Building Codes on the Commercial Building Market, Levente Timar, Arthur Grimes & Richard Fabling.
- Demand and Supply of Mortgage Credit, Alex van de Minne & Federica Teppa, De Nederlandsche Bank Working Paper No. 486.
December 2, 2015 | Permalink | No Comments
December 1, 2015
HUD at 50
The Office of Policy Development and Research at the Department of Housing and Urban Development has issued HUD at 50: Creating Pathways to Opportunity. It is a massive tome, with a lot of interest in it for the housing geeks among us. In the Preface, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Development Lynn Ross writes,
This volume looks back on HUD’s history and looks forward to ways the agency might evolve. If you are familiar with the mission and the work of PD&R, you will not be surprised to learn that this book includes thorough analyses of not only how programs succeeded, but also how they sometimes fell short and what was done in response. I hope you will take the time to engage with the analysis and ideas contained throughout this volume. We’ve organized this book so you can read the thematic chapters in any order—although you can certainly read it cover to cover.
Given that HUD at 50 is more than 250 pages long, only the most dedicated among us will do so. Nonetheless, it is worth skimming the table of contents to see if any of the entries are worth reading in full:
- Introduction by Julián Castro
- Chapter 1 The Founding and Evolution of HUD: 50 Years, 1965–2015 by Jill Khadduri
- Chapter 2 Race, Poverty, and Federal Rental Housing Policy by Ingrid Gould Ellen and Jessica Yager
- Chapter 3 Urban Development and Place by Raphael W. Bostic
- Chapter 4 Housing Finance in Retrospect by Susan Wachter and Arthur Acolin
- Chapter 5 Poverty and Vulnerable Populations by Margery Austin Turner, Mary K. Cunningham, and Susan J. Popkin
- Chapter 6 Housing Policy and Demographic Change by Erika Poethig, Pamela Blumenthal, and Rolf Pendall
- Conclusion Places as Platforms for Opportunity: Where We Are and Where We Should Go by Katherine M. O’Regan
I will take a closer look at some of these chapters in the coming days, but feel free to dip in before I do!
December 1, 2015 | Permalink | No Comments
Tuesday’s Regulatory & Legislative Round-Up
- The Department of Housing and Urban Development has released a notice to the Federal Register to announce the Designated Difficult Development Areas and Qualified Census Tracks for purposes of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, which become effective July 1st 2016. This is the firs time that the Department has used Small Area Market Rents (SAMRs) as opposed to Metropolitan Area Market Rents for designation of Difficult Development Areas. The use of SMARs will allow a more granular assessment of rent differences within Metropolitan areas.
- Representatives Blum and Aguilar sent a letter, signed by 34 members of the U.S. House of Representatives urging Congress to act quickly to extend the 2014 Tax Extenders Legislation. Enterprise Community Partners Blog details how this extension would affect the Low Income Housing Tax Credit and the New Market Tax Credit, which have been utilized successfully by developers of affordable housing.
December 1, 2015 | Permalink | No Comments
November 30, 2015
The Semi-State of the CFPB
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released its Semi-Annual Report for the period ending September 30th. I think that it is a dog-bites-man type of report as far as mortgages are concerned. A lot of the heavy lifting on mortgages has already been done over the last few years with the issuance of various major rules, although the Bureau did issue a lot of proposed mortgage rules with smaller scopes during this period (see pages 89-90). The Bureau now seems to be mostly in an enforcement mode as far as mortgages are concerned (see pages 103-119 for an overview of 45 recent enforcement actions). The report also provides pretty comprehensive lists of its significant activities in its appendices:
- Appendix B: Statutory reporting requirements
- Appendix C: Significant rules, orders, and initiatives
- Appendix D: Actions taken regarding rules, orders, and supervisory actions with respect to covered persons which are not credit unions or depository institutions
- Appendix E: Significant state attorney general and regulator actions
- Appendix F: Reports
- Appendix G: Congressional testimony
- Appendix H: Speeches
I leave you with an interesting chart from the report:
Types of Mortgage Complaints (from about 50,000 total) %
- Problems when you are unable to pay (e.g., foreclosure) 45%
- Making payments (e.g., loan servicing) 37%
- Applying for the loan (e.g., mortgage broker) 9%
- Signing the agreement (Settlement process and costs) 5%
- Receiving a credit offer (Credit decision/Underwriting) 3%
- Other 2%
Total mortgage complaints 100%
November 30, 2015 | Permalink | No Comments
Monday’s Adjudication Roundup
- BNY Mellon files a brief on writ for cert with the Supreme Court warning the potential for “warping” the residential mortgage-backed securities market if it overturns the Second Circuit’s decision finding that provisions of the Trust Indenture Act did not apply to the securities at issue.
- Investors of Citibank file a class action in NY state court claiming that Citibank ignored toxic residential mortgage-backed securities causing $2.3 billion in losses.
- Investors sue RAIT Financial Trust and its trustees alleging that the trust knew about subsidiary pocketing fees leading to a $21.5 million SEC settlement.
November 30, 2015 | Permalink | No Comments
November 27, 2015
The Marvel of NYC’s Water Supply
Another school holiday, another museum. The family and I went to the Queens Museum. Although I am a lifelong New Yorker, I had never been there before. It is a great, small museum, with just a few galleries. It is right smack in the middle of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. The museum is a stone’s throw of the majestic Unisphere, which is even more amazing from close up. We had gone to see the survey of Zhang Hongtu‘s work, which was very good. But readers of this blog would likely be more interested in two exhibits on long-term loan to the museum. The first is From Watersheds to Faucets: The Marvel of New York City’s Water Supply System:
For the 1939 World’s Fair, city agencies were invited to produce exhibits for the New York City Pavilion, now the Queens Museum. Each exhibit shared “what the various branches of municipal government are doing to serve the citizens of today.”
To educate New Yorkers about the water supply system, the Department of Water Supply, Gas, and Electricity, created the relief map now displayed at the Queens Museum. A team of cartographers began work in 1938 with a depression-era budget of $100,000, roughly $1.5 million in today’s dollars. But at 540 square feet, the model was too big for the allotted space. Ten years later, it made its only public appearance in the City’s Golden Anniversary Exposition at Manhattan’s Grand Central Palace.
In 2008, after decades in storage, the 27-piece relief map was in desperate need of conservation. The model was sent to McKay Lodge Fine Arts Conservation Lab in Oberlin, Ohio and restored to its original brilliance. In collaboration with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, it will now remain on long-term loan in its originally intended home in the New York City Building.
The second exhibit is pretty famous and it is very cool to see up close: the Panorama of the City of New York, the biggest full-scale architectural model in the world. The Panorama was commissioned for the 1964 World’s Fair. The museum has kept the Twin Towers on the Panorama, which is pretty powerful, once you notice it.
The two exhibits together give you a sense of the grandeur of a world-class city both in itself and within its broader physical context. Another thing to put on your NYC bucket list.
November 27, 2015 | Permalink | No Comments
Friday’s Government Reports
- The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released its Annual Report to Congress on the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund, an independent actuarial analysis that found capital reserves at 2.7%. Congress mandates a minimum 2% reserve. The findings also reveal a 3rd consecutive year of growth for the fund which is now worth 23.8 Billion (up 19 billion from 2014).
November 27, 2015 | Permalink | No Comments
