Tag Archives: CoreLogic

Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Works

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The Urban Institute published a study, National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program Evaluation Final Report, Rounds 3 Through 5, that it prepared for NeighborWorks® America. The executive summary notes that

The National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling (NFMC) program is a special federal appropriation, administered by NeighborWorks® America (NeighborWorks), designed to support a rapid expansion of foreclosure intervention counseling in response to the nationwide foreclosure crisis. The NFMC program seeks to help homeowners facing foreclosure by providing them with much-needed foreclosure prevention and loss mitigation counseling. The objective of the counseling services provided to clients is to determine the most appropriate solution, given a client’s circumstances and aid them in obtaining this solution. NeighborWorks distributes funds to competitively selected Grantee organizations, which in turn provide counseling, either directly or through Subgrantee organizations. (v)

The Urban Institute found that households counseled through NFMC were nearly 3 times more likely to have received a loan modification than non-counseled households. The authors estimate that “nearly two-thirds of the 151,000 loan modifications that NFMC clients received after entry into counseling would not have happened at all without the assistance of their counselor.” (vii)

On the one hand, these are very significant results and seem to validate this approach to foreclosure mitigation counseling. On the other hand, there is a lot of literature that calls into question the efficacy of various forms of financial counseling. It is important that this study be peer reviewed to ensure that its methods and conclusions are valid. If it holds up, it is equally important that we determine why this approach is so much more effective than many others.

State of the Nation’s Housing Finance

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The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University has released the 2014 edition of The State of the Nation’s Housing. As to the nation’s housing finance system, the report finds that

The government still had an outsized footprint in the mortgage market in 2013, purchasing or guaranteeing 80.3 percent of all mortgages originated. The FHA/VA share of first liens, at 19.7 percent, was well above the average 6.1 percent share in 2002–03, let alone the 3.2 percent share at the market peak in 2005–06. Origination shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were also higher than before the mortgage market crisis, but less so than that of FHA. According to the Urban Institute’s Housing Finance Policy Center, the GSEs purchased or guaranteed 61 percent of originations in 2012 and 2013, up from 49 percent in 2002 and 2003.

Portfolio lending, however, has begun to bounce back, rising 8 percentage points from post-crisis lows and accounting for 19 percent of originations last year. While improving, this share is far from the nearly 30 percent a decade earlier. In contrast, private-label securitizations have been stuck below 1 percent of originations since 2008. Continued healing in the housing market and further clarity in the regulatory environment should set the stage for further increases in private market activity. (11)

As usual, this report is chock full of good information about the single-family and multi-family sectors. I did find that some of its characterizations of the housing market were lacking. For instance, the report states

Many factors have played a role in the sluggish recovery of the home purchase loan market in recent years, including falling household incomes and uncertainty about the direction of the economy and home prices. But the limited availability of mortgage credit for borrowers with less than stellar credit has also contributed. According to information from CoreLogic, home purchase lending to borrowers with credit scores below 620 all but ended after 2009. Since then, access to credit among borrowers with scores in the 620–659 range has become increasingly constrained, with their share of loans falling by 6 percentage points. At the same time, the share of home purchase loans to borrowers with scores above 740 rose by 8 percentage points.

Meanwhile, the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) have also concentrated both their purchase and refinancing activity on applicants with higher credit scores. At Fannie Mae, only 15 percent of loans acquired in 2013 were to borrowers with credit scores below 700—a dramatic drop from the 35 percent share averaged in 2001–04. Moreover, just 2 percent of originations were to borrowers with credit scores below 620. The percentage of Freddie Mac lending to this group has remained negligible.

Yet another drag on the mortgage market recovery is the high cost of credit. For borrowers who are able to access credit, loan costs have increased steadily. To start, interest rates climbed from 3.35 percent at the end of 2012 to 4.46 percent at the end of 2013. This increase was tempered somewhat by a slight retreat in early 2014. In addition, the GSEs and FHA raised the fees required to insure their loans after the mortgage market meltdown, and many of these charges remain in place or have risen. The average guarantee fee charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac jumped from 22 basis points in 2009 to 38 basis points in 2012. In 2008, the GSEs also introduced loan level price adjustments (LLPAs) or additional upfront fees paid by lenders based on loan-to-value (LTV) ratios, credit scores, and other risk factors. LLPAs total up to 3.25 percent of the loan value for riskier borrowers and are paid for through higher interest rates on their loans. (20)

Implicit in this analysis is the view that lending should return in some way to its pre-bust levels. But, in fact, much of the boom lending was unsustainable for many borrowers. The analysis fails to identify the importance of promoting sustainable homeownership and instead relies on one dimensional metrics like credit denials for those with low credit scores. Until we are confident that borrowers with those scores can sustain homeownership in large numbers, we should not be so quick to bemoan credit constraints for people with a history of losing their homes to foreclosure.

The Center’s analysis also takes a simplistic view about guarantee fees.  The relevant metric is not the absolute size of the g-fee. Rather, the issue should be whether the g-fee level achieves its goals. At a minimum, those goals include appropriately measuring the risk of having to make good on the guarantee.

Finally, the Center demonstrates symptoms of historical amnesia when it characterizes an interest rate of 4.46% as “high.” This is an incredibly low rate of interest and one would expect that rates would rise as we exit from the bust years.

I have made the point before that the Center’s work seems to reflect the views of its funders. The funders of this report (not identified in the report by the way) include the National Association of Home Builders; National Association of Realtors; National Housing Conference; National Multifamily Housing Council; and a whole host of lenders, builders and companies in related fields that make up the Center’s Policy Advisory Board. These organizations benefit from a growing housing sector. This report seems to reflect an unthinking pro-growth perspective. It would have benefited from a parallel focus on sustainable homeownership.

Misleading CoreLogic Report on Qualified Mortgage Rules

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The Wall Street Journal reported (behind its paywall) uncritically on a recently released CoreLogic report about the supposed impact of the new Qualified Mortgage rules issued last month by the CFPB on the mortgage market.  The report is very flawed.

The report states that “the issuance of final Dodd-Frank related regulations now underway represent a watershed moment that will impact the size of mortgage market [sic] and performance for many years to come.” (3) In particular, it argues that the new CFPB Qualified Mortgage and Qualified Residential Mortgage rules “remove 60  percent of loans.” (4)

The methodology here is superficially sophisticated, employing a

waterfall approach . . . where loans that do not qualify for QM were sequentially removed.  The loan features that do not meet the QM requirements include loans with back-end [Debt To Income] above 43 percent, negative amortizations, interest only, balloons, low or no documentation, and loans with more than a 30 year term. (3)

The report thus implies that the QM regulations will reduce the number of mortgages originated by nearly two thirds.  But the report ignores the obvious dynamics that one would find in a well-functioning market.  Once certain products are banned  (let’s say interest only mortgages), borrowers will have at least three options.  First, they can take the path implied by CoreLogic and exit the mortgage market thereby becoming one of the supposedly 60 percent of loans that are “removed” from the market.  Or, they can seek a mortgage product that complies with the new rules (perhaps an ARM) that will allow them to buy the home of their choice.  Or, they can choose to buy a cheaper house with a mortgage that complies with the rules and is affordable to them.  It is very likely that many borrowers will go with the second or third option, resulting in a different but not severely diminished mortgage market.

Yes, the new rules will change the types of mortgages that are available.  Yes, loans will be more conservatively underwritten to ensure that they are sustainable.  Yes, home prices will need to find a new equilibrium.  But no, CoreLogic, the new rules will not destroy the mortgage market.