Thursday, December 20, 2007

Congress Slips out of Town with FHA Bill In Limbo.

Best I can tell a conferenced FHA reform bill was never presented to either the House or Senate before both chambers slipped out of town for the holiday.

I expect the FHA reform conference bill will resurface after first of year, but after watching all the preening speeches declaring varying degrees of firsts and successes (it only took 80 extra days to pass FY 08 appropriations) it is difficult to muster much enthusiasm about the speed or seriousness of Congress, and especially the Senate, on housing issues during this session.

2 comments:

  1. It would have been a great Christmas gift if S2338 had gone to conference committee before the holiday recess but we knew better. I believe that with the added pressure of the mounting foreclosure in the next two to three weeks, Congress will have no choice but to do something positive. Also you can bet that they are not going to stop at a loan cap of $417,000. If they compromise maybe $600,000. That would be sweet.

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  2. John, thanks for taking time to make comment. I talked to Banking Committee staff who also believe that FHA reform will get done after the holiday. Haven't looked at FHA loan cap closely in two bills, but I think it will be same as GSE cap, whatever that turns out to be. Irony as I recall is that state revenue housing bond price cap is function of FHA cap so it may be higher than FHA or GSE.(needs more research)
    Again, thanks for taking time to make the comment.

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