Tag Archives: Federal Housing Administration

Reiss on Drop in FHA Premium

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Law360 quoted me in FHA Premium Cut Sets Up Fight Over Future Of Housing (behind a paywall). It reads in part,

President Barack Obama’s plan to lower premiums on Federal Housing Administration insurance has rekindled a battle with Republicans over the rehabilitation of the recently bailed out government mortgage insurer and the government’s role in the U.S. housing market more broadly.

Obama on Thursday officially laid out a plan that would see the FHA charge borrowers half a percentage point less on mortgage insurance premiums beginning this month in a move to boost affordability for the low- and middle-income borrowers who traditionally rely on FHA-backed mortgages.

The announcement came as the FHA continues to recover from a post-financial crisis shortfall that saw the long-standing program receive a $1.7 billion bailout from the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2013, the first time the FHA has needed federal support.

Obama’s move on mortgage insurance premiums could make the road to a secure FHA take that much longer, and, coupled with earlier policy changes by the Federal Housing Finance Agency on mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, set up a renewed fight with Republicans over government support for the housing market.

“What’s at stake is not just housing prices and mortgage rates,” Brooklyn Law School professor David Reiss said. “What’s implicit of all of this is: What’s the appropriate role of the government in the housing market?”

The president’s plan would see the FHA charge borrowers 0.85 percent annual premiums on their mortgage insurance, down from the 1.35 percent they currently pay. First-time homebuyers will see a $900 drop in their mortgage payments each year under the new policy, according to a fact sheet released Wednesday by the White House.

“It’ll help make owning a home more affordable for millions” around the country, Obama said in a speech in Phoenix on Thursday.

Housing analysts said that the move could help boost the housing market at the margins but would not entice a large number of first-time buyers to get into the housing market.

The lower mortgage insurance premium will prove to be “marginally beneficial for the average borrower, in our opinion, and consequently, we do not believe this news … is a catalyst for higher housing demand and higher earnings estimates,” Sterne Agee analyst Jay McCanless said in a note Thursday.

But what the rate cut does is put in clear relief Obama’s plan to boost the housing market and provide a strong government role in that key economic sector, even if it means potentially putting added pressure on the agencies that provide government assistance to the housing market. Those agencies include the FHA as well as the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the two failed mortgage giants over which it has authority, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“The tension is between financial responsibility and public policy about housing,” Reiss said.

In the FHA’s case, lowering the mortgage insurance premium is likely to increase the amount of time that the agency will need to get to a 2 percent capital level that is mandated by Congress.

An independent audit of the FHA’s finances released late last year found that the agency’s Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund stood at a positive $4.8 billion as of the end of September after being as much as $16.3 billion in the hole in 2012.

Still, while the gain on the fund has been real, its capital ratio stood at only 0.41 percent in that period, far lower than the mandated 2 percent.

*     *     *

Obama had backed congressional efforts to eliminate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and boost private capital in the mortgage market, but they failed amid disagreements between the Senate and House Republicans. The issue is now largely dormant.

That has left a vacuum for Obama to fill, Reiss said.

“Because Congress refused to act, Republicans are going to be stuck with a more activist government because they refused to come to the table and put together a proposal that can pass,” he said.

Life Post-Fannie, Post-Freddie

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The Congressional Budget Office has released a report, Transitioning to Alternative Structures for Housing Finance. This report

examines various mechanisms that policymakers could use to attract more private capital to the secondary mortgage market. The report also addresses how those mechanisms could be combined in different ways to help the market make the transition to a new structure during the coming decade. CBO analyzed transition paths to four alternative structures that involve choices about whether the government would continue to guarantee payment on mortgages and MBSs and, if so, what form and prices those guarantees would have. Under those different structures, the government’s activities would range from providing full or partial guarantees for a large share of the mortgage market to playing a minimal role in a largely private market (except perhaps during a financial crisis). Any transition to a new type of secondary market would also require decisions about what to do with the existing operations, guarantee obligations, and investment holdings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (1, footnotes omitted)

The report has three key findings:

1.  A transition to a new structure for housing finance that emphasized private capital could reduce costs and risks to taxpayers. One drawback to such a transition is that mortgages could become somewhat less available and more expensive to borrowers. Thus, over the longer term, it could also result in a modest shift of the economy’s resources away from housing toward other activities.
2.  Although the transition to a new structure could significantly decrease the number of borrowers who received mortgages backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, additional private capital would replace most of the lost funding. Borrowers would probably not face significant increases in interest rates because the two GSEs’ current pricing is not too far below market pricing. Consequently, a gradual transition would probably exert only modest downward pressure on house prices.
3.  Because policymakers have already raised the guarantee fees charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac close to those that CBO estimates would be charged by private insurers, the budgetary costs of the two GSEs’ activities over the next 10 years are expected to be small. As a result, the budgetary savings would also be small under any of the transition paths to a more private system that CBO considered. Thus, the choice between the different market structures probably rests primarily on considerations other than budgetary costs. (2)
I have been a long-time advocate for attracting more private capital to the secondary mortgage market, so I welcome this report. Given the public statements of the Obama Administration and the composition of the new Congress, there appears to be an opportunity to move in that direction. A bipartisan reform plan for the housing finance system will need to provide for a lender of last resort; appropriate consumer protection; and assistance for households that are underserved by the private market. There seems to be bipartisan will to reform this system, so we just need to chart a way to achieve it. This report leads us down the right path.

Housing Finance Reform at a Glance

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The Urban Institute has posted its November Housing Finance At A Glance.  This is a really valuable resource. The introduction provides a nice overview of recent developments in the area:

With a sweeping midterm election victory for the GOP, the path to legislative GSE reform got considerably narrower. Thus, the focus for reform turns to the FHFA and FHA, where we expect significant movement in the coming months. Over the past six months, the FHFA has asked for input on a variety of issues, and we have commented on them all: guarantee fees and loan level pricing adjustments, Private Mortgage Insurance Eligibility requirements (PMIERs), the single security, and affordable housing goals.
The FHFA has made a concerted effort to open the credit box, strengthening the provision by which lenders are relieved from much of their put-back risk and raising the maximum loan-to-value ratio for some GSE loans from 95 to 97. Both will help expand access without unduly increasing GSE risk. FHFA Director Mel Watt has indicated in recent speeches that work is underway to further clarify reps and warrants, with more guidance on the sunset provision, an independent resolution process for put-back disputes, and remedies short of a put-back for lesser mistakes.
As our new credit availability index indicates, these actions to open the credit box are very important. Our index shows that post-crisis loans have half the credit risk of loans made in the 2000-2003 period. The GSE channel is particularly tight, with about a third of the risk of the 2000-2003 period. This is corroborated by the data in our special feature, which shows that only 8.3 percent of recent Fannie loans (page 34) and 7.4 percent of recent Freddie loans (page 36) have FICOs under 700, compared to 35-37 percent in 1999-2004.
On the FHA side, there have also been initiatives to open the credit box, as outlined in the Blueprint for Access program. Since then, the FHA has released the initial critical draft chapters of their guidebook and a draft of the taxonomy of defects. Many hope to see lower mortgage insurance premiums to broaden access and lessen the risk of adverse selection as better credit flees to the less costly GSEs. Given that their actuary now projects that the FHA’s Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund will not reach the statutory reserve requirements until 2016, however, such a move is far from certain.
Risk Sharing Developments
The GSEs continue to broaden their risk sharing activities, now turning to front-end risk sharing deals. Prior to this month, they had focused exclusively, and with much success, on laying off risk already on their books, known as back-end risk sharing. Fannie has laid off risk on 7.5 percent of their book of business and Freddie on 11.9 percent of theirs (page 21), both far exceeding the requirements of the Conservatorship Scorecard. The GSEs started including mortgages over 80 LTV in these transactions in May.
This month saw a very meaningful step in bringing private capital back into the mortgage market: the first front-end risk sharing deal, JPMorgan’s Madison Avenue Securities 2014-1 (page 21). JP Morgan warehoused loans made by JP Morgan Chase bank, then sold them in bulk into a newly issued Fannie Mae MBS, presumably for a very meaningful reduction in guarantee fees. JP Morgan retained the first 4.75 percent subordinated interest, and a 26.88 bps servicing strip that absorbs losses before the subordinated interest. The risk on the 4.75 percent subordinated interest was sold in the capital markets in the form of credit linked notes. Redwood Trust is also reported to be contemplating a front-end risk sharing transaction.
Front-end risk sharing bears important similarities to the private capital/catastrophic insurance structure contemplated by many GSE reform proposals. It is thus an administrative opportunity to experiment deliberately with a truly reduced government footprint in the conventional mortgage market. (3)
I am very excited by the possibility of putting private capital in a first loss position for residential mortgages and agree with UI that the stars are aligning, at least a little bit, for this to become a reality. Many interests will need to be balanced for this to move forward, but politicians of all stripes should be worried about leaving Fannie and Freddie in limbo for much longer.

Reiss on Privatization of Fannie and Freddie

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BadCredit.org profiled an article of mine in Brooklaw Professor Pushes for Privatization of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac. The profile opens,

Since the end of the Great Recession, policymakers, academics and economists have been struggling with a very difficult question — what should we do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Should the government continue its role in providing mortgage credit to millions of American?

Fordham University Associate Professor of Law and Ethics Brent J. Horton made a proposal in his forthcoming paper “For the Protection of Investors and the Public: Why Fannie Mae’s Mortgage-Backed Securities Should Be Subject to the Disclosure Requirements of the Securities Act of 1933“:

“The best way to reduce risk taking at Fannie Mae is to subject its MBS offerings to the disclosure requirements of the Securities Act of 1933,” Horton writes.

However, Brooklyn Law School Professor of Law David Reiss believes “the problems inherent in Fannie Mae’s structure are greater than those that increased disclosure can address.”

In his response, titled “Who Should Be Providing Mortgage Credit to American Households?” Reiss points to increased privatization as one way to address the question of what to do with Fannie Mae and Freddi Mac.

Reiss on Who Should Be Providing Mortgage Credit to American Households?

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I have posted a short Response, Who Should Be Providing Mortgage Credit to American Households?, to SSRN (as well as to BePress).  The abstract reads,

Who should be providing mortgage credit to American households? Given that the residential mortgage market is a ten-trillion-dollar one, the answer we come up with had better be right, or we may suffer another brutal financial crisis sooner than we would like. Indeed, the stakes are as high as they were in the Great Depression when the foundation of our current system was first laid down. Unfortunately, the housing finance experts of the 1930s seemed to have a greater clarity of purpose when designing their housing finance system. Part of the problem today is that debates over the housing finance system have been muddled by broader ideological battles and entrenched special interests, as well as by plain old inertia and the fear of change. It is worth taking a step back to evaluate the full range of options available to us, as the course we decide upon will shape the housing market for generations to come. This is a Response to Brent Horton, For the Protection of Investors and the Public: Why Fannie Mae’s Mortgage-Backed Securities Should Be Subject to the Disclosure Requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, 89 Tulane L. Rev. __ (forthcoming 2014-2015).

Reiss on Easing Credit

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Law360 quoted me in With Lessons Learned, FHFA Lets Mortgage Giants Ease Credit (behind a paywall). It reads in part,

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s plan to boost mortgage lending by allowing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to purchase loans with 3 percent down payments may stir housing bubble memories, but experts say better underwriting standards and other protections should prevent the worst subprime lending practices from returning.

FHFA Director Mel Watt on Monday said that his agency would lower the down payment requirement for borrowers to receive the government-sponsored enterprises’ support in a bid to get more first-time and lower-income borrowers access to mortgage credit and into their own homes.

However, unlike the experience of the housing bubble years — where subprime lenders engaged in shoddy and in some cases fraudulent underwriting practices and borrowers took on more home than they could afford — the lower down payment requirements would be accompanied by tighter underwriting and risk-sharing standards, Watt said.

“Through these revised guidelines, we believe that the enterprises will be able to responsibly serve a targeted segment of creditworthy borrowers with lower down payment mortgages by taking into account ‘compensating factors,’” Watt said at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s annual meeting in Las Vegas, according to prepared remarks.

*     *     *

The realities of the modern mortgage market, and the new rules that are overseeing it, should prevent the lower down payment requirements from leading to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and by extension taxpayers taking on undue risk, Brooklyn Law School professor David Reiss said.

Tighter underwriting requirements such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s qualified mortgage standard and ability to repay rules have made it less likely that people are taking on loans that they cannot afford, he said.

Prior to the crisis, many subprime mortgages had the toxic mix of low credit scores, low down payments and low documentation of the ability to repay, Reiss said.

“If you don’t have too many of those characteristics, there is evidence that loans are sustainable” even with a lower down payment, he said.

The FHFA is also pushing for private actors to take on more mortgage credit risk as a way to shrink Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. There is a very good chance that private mortgage insurers could step in to take on the additional risks to the system from lower down payments, rather than taxpayers, Platt said.

“You’ll need a mortgage insurer to agree to those lower down payment requirements because they’re going to have to bear the risk of that loss,” he said.

The 97 percent loan-to-value ratio that the FHFA will allow for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac backing is not significantly higher than the 95 percent that is currently in place, Platt said.

Having the additional risk fall to insurers could mean that the system can handle that additional risk, particularly with the FHFA looking to increase capital requirements for mortgage insurers, Reiss said.

“It could be that the whole system is capitalized enough to take this risk,” he said.

A Framework For Housing Finance

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The Government Accountability Office has released Housing Finance System: A Framework for Assessing Potential Changes. The GAO writes,

To help policymakers assess various proposals for changing the single-family housing finance system and consider ways in which the system could be made more effective and efficient, we prepared this report under the authority of the Comptroller General. Specifically, this report (1) describes market developments since 2000 that have led to changes in the federal government’s role in single-family housing finance; (2) analyzes whether and how these market developments have challenged the housing finance system; and (3) presents an evaluation framework for assessing potential changes to the housing finance system. (2)
It is useful to have a framework to figure out what kind of housing finance system we want for the 21st century. The GAO’s has 9 elements:
  1. Clearly defined and prioritized housing finance system goals
  2. Policies and mechanisms that are aligned with goals and other economic policies
  3. Adherence to an appropriate financial regulatory framework
  4. Government entities that have capacity to manage risks
  5. Mortgage borrowers are protected and barriers to mortgage market access are addressed
  6. Protection for mortgage securities investors
  7. Consideration of cyclical nature of housing finance and impact of housing finance on financial stability
  8. Recognition and control of fiscal exposure and mitigation of moral hazard
  9. Emphasis on implications of the transition (54-55)
This all sounds very Yoda-like, but the report itself goes into great detail as to what each of these 9 elements means. Given that Congress has left the housing finance system to its own devices, it is helpful that other branches of government like the GAO, Treasury and the FHFA are trying to move us beyond our current state of limbo. We need a housing finance system that is designed to last longer than the Band Aids and duct tape that were applied to it during the financial crisis.