Thursday’s Advocacy & Think Tank Round-Up

  • The Institute of Housing Studies at DePaul University has issued a report analyzing foreclosure activity which finds that foreclosures are down in the Chicago area in 2014.  The report also finds that mortgage activity remains low while investor buyers have become a major factor in the single family market.
  • Miami Coalition for the Homeless has proposed a set of solutions to make housing in Miami affordable.  The prosed policy changes grew out of a cross sector symposium dubbed the 2015 Housing Summit – organized to promoting the creation and maintenance of affordable housing in Miami-Dade County, where 71% of monthly household income goes to housing and transportation.
  • The National Association of Realtors (NAR) would like to see the Federal Housing Authority (FHA)  increase National Loan Limits.  The National Loan Limit sets the individual loan limits available under the Government Sponsored Entities (Fannie and Freddie) and FHA and VA loan programs. In a comment letter to the FHA NAR argues that since housing prices have rebounded following the financial crisis – now expected  to surpass 2007’s prices, increases are in order.

Thursday’s Advocacy & Think Tank Round-Up

  • City lab’s analyzes why Billionaires Don’t Pay Taxes in New York, concludes that recent housing boom has been in the “ultralux” market and that the owners pay a fraction of their share due to a tax code that shifts the burden from owners to renters and from the wealthy to the poor.
  • The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released an analysis of federal housing subsidy programs and their effectiveness
  • Corelogic’s National Foreclosure Report for March 2015 finds that while delinquency rates are down to 3.9% the percentage of mortgagees struggling to make their payments is still above pre-recession levels.
  • National Association of Realtors released data showing decreased homeownership rates across regional metro areas of the U.S., analysis of this data lead to the conclusion that continued decline in homeownership means the gains are going to fewer people and likely leading to worsening inequality in the U.S.
  • The Roosevelt Institute’s Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Prosperity by Joseph Stieglitz, seeks to completely revamp the rules and regulations that shape our economy, corporate behavior and the financial sector – with a view toward creating shared prosperity. Proposals related to real estate finance include, providing §11 bankruptcy protection for homeowners and creating a public option for the supply of mortgages.
  • The Urban Institute released Welding a Heavy Enforcement Hammer has Unintended Consequences for FHA Mortgage Market concludes that the significant, easily triggered liability of both the False Claims Act and the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act have had a chilling effect, causing some lenders to do less origination to reduce their litigation risk.

Thursday’s Advocacy & Think Tank Round-up