Tag Archives: rural areas

Framing Bipartisan Housing Finance Reform

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photo by Jan Tik

The Bipartisan Policy Center has issued A Framework for Improving Access and Affordability in a Reformed Housing Finance System. The brief was written by Michael Stegman who had served as the Obama Administration’s top advisor on housing policy. It opens,

With policymakers gearing up to reform the housing finance system, it is worth revisiting one of the issues that stymied negotiators in the reform effort of 2014: how to ensure adequate access to credit in the new system. The political landscape has changed substantially since 2014. For those who are focused on financing affordable housing and promoting access to mortgage credit, the status quo—the continued conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—may no longer be as appealing as it was during those negotiations. This brief draws upon the lessons learned from that experience to outline a framework for bipartisan consensus in this transformed political environment.

The “middle-way” approach described here is not dependent upon any one structure or future role for the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), though it does assume the continuation of a government guarantee of qualified mortgage-backed securities (MBS). It is this guarantee that forms the basis of the obligation to ensure that the benefits flowing from the government backstop are as broadly available as possible, consistent with safety and soundness and taxpayer protection.

In recent months, at least three such proposals have been developed that preserve a federal backstop (see Mortgage Bankers Association, Bright and DeMarco, and Parrott et al. proposals). Should the administration and Congress pursue a strict privatization approach to reform, lacking a guarantee, it’s unlikely that any affordable housing obligations would be imposed in the reformed system. (cover page, footnotes omitted)

Stegman goes on to describe “The Affordable Housing Triad:”

Over the years, Congress has made it clear that the GSEs’ public purpose includes supporting the financing of affordable housing and promoting access to mortgage credit “throughout the nation, including central cities, rural areas, and underserved areas,” even if doing so involves earning “a reasonable economic return that may be less than the return earned on other activities.” As part of this mandate, policymakers have created a triad of affordable housing and credit access requirements:

  1. Meeting annual affordable-mortgage purchase goals set by the regulator;
  2. Paying an assessment on each dollar of new business to help capitalize two different affordable housing funds; and
  3. Developing and executing targeted duty-to-serve strategies, the purpose of which is to increase liquidity in market segments underserved by primary lenders and the GSEs, defined by both geography and housing types. (1, footnote omitted)

The paper outlines three bipartisan options that would not

compromise the obligation to provide liquidity to all corners of the market at the least possible cost, consistent with taxpayer protection and safety and soundness. Each option attempts to ensure that the system as a whole provides access and affordability at least as much as the existing system; includes an explicit and transparent fee on the outstanding balance of guaranteed MBS; and includes a duty to serve the broadest possible market. (3)

The paper is intended to spark further conversation about housing finance reform while advocating for the needs of low- and moderate-income households. I hope it succeeds in pushing Congress to focus on the details of what could be a bipartisan exit strategy from the endless GSE conservatorships.

 

Reading the EB-5 TEA Leaves

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Selena N. B. H.

Jeanne Calderon and Gary Friedland at the NYU Stern School of Business have posted What TEA Projects Might Look Like Under EB-5 2.0: Alternatives Illustrated with Maps and Data. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the EB-5 program, the authors provide some background:

Under the EB-5 Program, enacted in 1990, an immigrant who invests at least $500,000 or $1,000,000 in a specific U.S. business project is eligible for permanent residency, if the investment creates at least 10 American jobs.

These invested funds became an inexpensive source of patient, flexible capital for real estate development projects after the Great Recession in 2008. More recently, EB-5 capital has blossomed into a mainstream source of capital for real estate development projects. The immigrants’ pooled equity capital is contributed to an entity (known under the EB-5 law as a “New Commercial Enterprise” or “NCE”) typically created by an affiliated government-approved regional center. The proceeds are most commonly deployed as a mezzanine loan to a real estate project development entity (known under the EB-5 law as a “Job Creating Entity” or “JCE”). The immigrant’s motivation to make the investment is to qualify for the visa, and thus, he accepts interest rates well below market.

The original purpose of the EB-5 law was to create investments and jobs in rural areas, as well as high unemployment areas, referred to as “Targeted Employment Areas” (“TEA”). To encourage investments in these areas, the minimum investment in a project located in a TEA was set at a discounted level of $500,000, compared to $1,000,000 for a project not located in a TEA. Developers strive to have the location of their projects qualify as a TEA because immigrants seeking the EB-5 visa strongly prefer to invest in areas where the lesser minimum investment level applies, especially if they believe the investment will result in their receipt of a visa and a return of their capital investment.

Some members of Congress and other critics had become outraged by the growing trend of projects qualifying as TEAs that are located in thriving urban areas and commanding the lion’s share of EB-5 investment dollars. With the approval delegated to individual states, each of which was authorized to set its own rules and motivated to retain economic development within its own borders, projects in even the most affluent parts of the country were able to routinely qualify for the discounted investment level by combining contiguous census tracts (starting with the project site and often extending in unnatural configurations to remote sites miles away) until the weighted average met or exceeded the high unemployment threshold required by the law. This census tract aggregation is referred to pejoratively as “gerrymandering.” Thus, gerrymandering rendered the two level investment threshold meaningless and immigrants flocked to invest in luxury projects by major developers in urban areas. (4-5)

The authors conclude,

Congress should focus more attention on visa reserves and the types of projects that merit any special visa priority. As explained in the visa reserves section of this paper, immigrant investors are likely to place increasing importance on this issue in the near future as visa waiting periods rise. A project’s qualification for visa reserves might become as important a factor in the immigrant’s investment decision as the TEA status of a particular project. (48)

This type of program rubs many people the wrong way — Green Cards for Sale! — so it is important that is designed and implemented properly. As such, the authors make some valuable suggestions as to what EB-5 2.0 should look like.