HUD Section 202 and 811 Bills On Way to President for Signature.

PR from NY Senator Chuck Shumer is HERE.  Summary from his PR:

...S. 118, is designed to streamline the Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly program, which funds affordable housing for low-income seniors and protects their right to “age in place” through the provision of supportive, community-based services. ... S. 1481, provides people with disabilities the opportunity to live independently within their own communities by creating affordable rental units.

These bills make it easier for property owners who administer housing for seniors and persons with disabilities to refinance their properties – in turn allowing owners to preserve and maintain the affordability and quality of these units for residents

Pre passage NLIHC Memo to Members related item is HERE.

Links to text of legislation are pasted below:

S. 1481, the Frank Melville Supportive Housing Investment Act
S. 118, the Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly Act

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Study on Savings from Rent Legislative Proposal a Stretch.

Study HERE looks at potential savings to family (loss to mortgage holder) from legislation that would allow families in foreclosure to live in house for 5 years at market rent. Can't imagine that proposal is going anywhere any time soon, but study does include some calculations of potential cost savings using different scenarios.

In looking at projected savings for Portland metro, appears to me that savings from renting are somewhat overstated as assumption is based on comparison with FY 2010 2 BR Fair Market rent.  Claimed savings shrinks from $703 per month using study assumption to only $224 per month when using FY 2011 3 BR Fair Market rent.

See table pasted below for detailed calculations for Portland Metro:

$283,800	Median Sales Price
$212,850	75% of Sales Price
$197,951	Mtg Amount@93%
6.00%	Int Rate
360	Term
$1,187	Principal and Interest
$177	Taxes@.75%
$177	Insurance Maintenance@.75%
$1,542	Total PITI
$839	FY2010 2 BR FMR
$905	FY2011 2 BR FMR
$703	Claimed Savings Using FY 2010 2 BR FMR
$637	Calc Savings Using FY 2011 2 BR FMR
$1,222	FY 2010 3 BR FMR
$1,318	FY 2011 3 BR FMR
$320	Calc Savings Using FY 2010 3 BR FMR
$224	Calc Savings Using FY2011 3 BR FMR

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Title 14 Mortgage Reform and Anti Predatory Lending Act Provisons Extracted from Financial Services Reform Bill on Way to President for Signature.

While there are other mortgage lending provisions scattered throughout the Financial Services Reform bill that is now on the way to the President for signature, I have extracted the provisions in Title XIV (14) of the bill into a single PDF file HERE. 

There is a LOT to digest and a lot of moving parts [it is 78 pages long], but you will want to file this away as a reference for the future, I think. 

Statement from Senator Merkley on some of these provisions that he help champion:

“..I’m pleased that the bill includes provisions I championed to end some of the most egregious mortgage practices that led to the housing crisis and cost millions of families their homes.  The bill will ban steering payments, liar loans, and prepayment penalties and give Americans the transparency they deserve when purchasing their own home.   It will also create a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau dedicated to protecting consumers from financial tricks and traps, such as unfair overdraft fees and exploding interest rates.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Mortgage Provisions From Housing Finance Reform Conference Committee Approved Version.

Title XIV (aka "14") provisions, all 206 double space pages, are HERE.

(There is a LOT to digest in this Title, so if anyone sees good section by section summaries of this Title in the Conference passed bill, please do let me know so I can share them). 

Other titles from the conference bill are also being posted on House Financial Services web page HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

CBO Issues Cost Estimate for Voucher Reform Act.

CBO cost estimate is HERE.

CBO estimates that implementing this legislation would have a net cost of $7.6 billion over the 5 year 2010-2014 period, with 77% of those costs ($5.8 Billion) resulting from the 150,000 incremental vouchers that the bill would provide.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Anti ACORN Legislation Might Also Prohibit Business with Some Defense Contractors.

File this under "Proposed Laws with Unintended Consequences".

Huffington Post item is HERE.

LIHTC Advocacy Groups Start to Focus on Next Legislative Asks.

Courtesy of Novogradac, HERE is letter signed by number of LIHTC advocacy groups listing 3 specific "asks" as part of a developing legislative agenda.

Short version (see page 2 for details)

1. Extend the Exchange provision.
2. Extend the Carryback period to 5 years.
3. Expand eligible investor universe.

Letter has Enterprise advocacy website as footer: rentalhousingaction.org

UPDATE 1: HUD House FY 2010 Appropriations Bill Nearing Vote; Listing of Related Resources.

UPDATE 1:
House Rule Committee Consideration; Conference Committee Report Now Available, Includes Earmarks.
The HUD appropriations bill is being considered this afternoon (Wed) by the House Rules Committee. The report on the bill is HERE; HUD section is on pages 152-206, and includes earmarks.

Once passed by the Rules Committee the bill will move on to consideration by the full House.

---
In advance of a House vote that could occur this week or next, resources related to the HUD FY 2010 appropriations bill are beginning to surface.

Text of the bill (which does not yet have a bill number) is HERE.

A bill summary from the Appropriations Committee is HERE; a list of program "cuts" (reductions from budget request) is HERE.

NLIHC has a updated budget comparison table that shows the latest House Appropriations Committee actions HERE. It shows FY 2010 budget authority of $47 Billion for HUD, $700 Million MORE than President's budget request.

A key missing document is the Committee Report which will eventually appear under House Approvals, Committee Report column in the FY 2010 appropriations bill status report website HERE. (Bill text, with a bill number, will also appear on this website).

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

National Housing Act 60th Anniversary Coming Next Week (Period Video).

The 60th Anniversary of the National Housing Act is July 15th, next Wednesday.

This is the law with the "decent home in a suitable living environment" and "safe, decent, and sanitary" provisions we have seen referenced over the years ; the law also authorized the start of urban renewal programs.

Some resources:

1. GAO--The most complete history of the bill I found including hearings, floor debates, amendments, and statements in the Congressional Record. The final law from this GAO website is HERE.
2. From the GAO website, I created excerpts from the Congressional Record from Oregon Congressional Representative Angell (his district was all within Multnomah County). They provide some Oregon housing context and a listing of proponents and opponents of the bill.
   
3. Housing Policy Debate had a special issue, Legacy of the Housing Act of 1949, that was published to recognize the 50th Anniversary; the issue contained seven different articles about the aftermath of this landmark legislation.
4. VIDEO below, from my fav place, the Internet Archive: A Place to Live, 1948. This period piece video provides a rationale for slum clearance/urban renewal and public housing development in Philadelphia.
   

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

House Committee Markup of Voucher Reform Bill is Tomorrow/Wednesday.

Web page on House Financial Services website is HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Transcript of Last Weeks Supreme Court Hearing on Federal Preemption of State Bank/Mortgage Regulation.

Case was Cuomo vs. The Clearing House Association

Transcript is HERE.
NY Times news story is HERE.

Full meal deal: Questions, briefs etc. available from ABA HERE. (About 2/3rds of way down on page, look for "April 28" or case citation).

Correction: CRS Report on the Low Income Housing Tax Credit: "A Framework for Evaluation".

Correction: Report actually from 2008, not 2009. Text has been corrected below.

30 page Congressional Research Report published last year is available from WikiLeaks HERE.

NLIHC Posts Side by Side of New Homeless Bills With Existing Law.

Detailed comparison from National Low Income Housing Coalition is HERE.

Foreclosure Bankruptcy Legislation Introduced; News Story Says Homebuilders Remove Opposition.

LA Times story HERE.

Thomas bill status page (H.R. 7328) is HERE.

CBO Analysis of Senate Rescue Bill.

Can be found HERE.

Bail Out Bill Initial Thoughts with HOPE for Homeowners Act Revisions.

Several documents, including the draft bill, can be found within House Financial Services Commitee website HERE.

Note: Bail out bill is now called the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008

Based on quick read of these documents three initial reactions:

1. Previously discussed funding for housing trust from profits from asset sales is OUT completely.
2. Several changes were made to the HOPE for Homeowners Act (New FHA refinance program that was part of summer housing legislation previously signed into law) scheduled to start THIS Wednesday. I have created a PDF showing those changes, included an amended version of the HOPE for Homeowners Act with the amendments shown with red bold underlining. You can download my effort to show these revisions HERE.
3. I don't understand significance of foreclosure related tax provisions for individual home owners. Will need to read and think about those.

New CRS Report on Bail Out Proposal.

A new report out from CRS HERE.

House Version of Bail Out Legislation.

Can be found HERE.

Note Section 8 on page 9, related to HOPE for Homeownership Program:

" SEC. 8. FORECLOSURE MITIGATION EFFORTS:
To the extent the Secretary acquires mortgages, mortgage backed securities, and other assets secured by residential real estate, the Secretary shall maximize assistance to the underlying mortgagors and use the Secretary’s authority as investor to encourage the servicers of the underlying mortgages, using net present value analysis, to take advantage of the Hope for Homeowners Program under section 257 of the National Housing Act or other available programs to minimize foreclosures."

Dodd Proposed Amendments to Bail Out Bill.

Senate Banking Committee Chris Dodd is proposing changes to the draft Treasury bail out bill.

A summary of his proposals can be found HERE; specific legislative language is HERE. Changes include changes to the new HUD/FHA Hope for Homeownership program scheduled to begin Oct.1st.

Oregon Subprime and Alt A ARM Loan Estimate: 62,000+ Loans

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York publishes monthly maps and data on subprime and ALT A loans HERE.

After my State Housing Council presentation last week, I went back and did some work to come up with a more refined estimate of how many subprime and Alt A ARM loans exist in Oregon.

The results are shown in the table HERE: my estimate is that there were more than 62,000 subprime and Alt A ARM loans in Oregon as of July 2008. Virtually all of those ARM loans would have been made during the period 2002 to 2007, the qualifying period for the new potential OHCS tax exempt bond refinancing program.

Methodology
The most important caveat about the NY Federal Reserve data is that the counts shown do NOT represent the total universe of subprime and Alt A loans, but instead a portion of that universe. Subprime loan counts shown represent an estimated 47% of the universe of all subprime loans, while Alt A loan counts represent an estimated 90% of the universe of Alt A loans, according to the NY Fed:

• "We estimate that as of year-end 2007, there were about a total of 7 million subprime loans. The underlying data contained 3.3 million active subprime loans, suggesting a coverage ratio of 47 percent. By definition, all alt-A mortgages are securitized. Our best guess is that 2.4 million loans in this portion of the data cover more than 90 percent of the pools marketed as alt-A."

The method I used to estimate Oregon ARM loan counts was to take the count of loans shown in the Fed data for that category, divide by the sample size (47% or 90%) to get an estimate of the total universe. I then multiplied that estimated total universe by the ARM percentage field in the database to arrive at the estimate for ARM loans.