Two HUD Housing Counseling Outcome Studies Out.

Pre-purchase counseling study is HERE.

Foreclosure counseling study is HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

$40 Million HUD Counseling NOFA Out.

I picked this up from a tweet yesterday, but for all of you old school (IE 2009) folks the NOFA can be accessed at grants.gov HERE. Application closing date is January 12, 2012.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Excel Workbook With Select Oregon, State and MSA Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Data and Ranks.

NeighborWorks America's release of their National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling report this week occurred 16 months after their last report but included important information at the state and MSA level. 

Unfortunately NeighborWorks chose to not release state and MSA data tables in Excel. 

Although it was a real pain to construct from their PDF file, I have put together an Excel workbook HERE with ranks of state and metro areas using data from 14 separate tables buried in the NeighborWorks report appendix. [See Excel downloading tip below]. I also constructed a table that ranks states by the total number of counseling units delivered. 

I also added a "Table List and Oregon Summary" worksheet  showing the table names and numbers AND Oregon ranks and values for these 15 tables. Tables in the rest of the workbook include data for ALL states and MSA's, not just Oregon, so this workbook can serve as a national resource.

The PDF file HERE is a print of the "Table List and Oregon Summary" worksheet. Some observations:

1. Oregon received 11,015 "units" of housing counseling, ranking 29th in the country; the Portland MSA [includes Vancouver] received 7,357 counseling units, ranking 45 out of 263 MSA's. [see my constructed table and table 19]
2. 20% of the families receiving counseling were African American, Hispanic, or Asian. [see tables 9, 10, and 11].
3. At 16.41% and 8.14% Oregon ranked relatively LOW (44th and 40th) on the percentage of counseled families with interest rates above 8% , including ARMS above 8% . [See tables 15 and 16].
4. At 19%, Oregon ranked relatively HIGH [19th] on the number of counseled families paying more than 75% of income for PITI [see table 17] 
5. At 20%, Oregon ranked LOW [46th] on counseled families who were paying less than 30% of income for PITI. [see table 18].
6. At 1,717 units, Oregon ranked 24th in the number of rural housing counseling units delivered. [see table 20].

Excel Downloading Tip-This workbook was created in Excel 2007/2010 format. Some users report they cannot direct view Excel files in this format from within their browser and/or that Excel files they save end up with a compressed .zip file extension. 

My suggestion is to RIGHT CLICK and save the file to your PC. Then navigate to the file you downloaded and look at its file extension. IF it appears as .ZIP extension, change the .ZIP extension to an Excel 2007/2010 extension (.xlsx), and THEN open the file with Excel 2007/2010.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Finally: New NeighborWorks America Congresional Report on Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program.

Just in time for a Congressional hearing, NeighborWorks America has issued  a new congressional report of their activities for the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling Program. (Their last report was published 16 months ago in May of 2010; My post about the prior report is HERE).

This report is in a simplified format HERE. An appendix has more details HERE. The report notes that it only covers 4 of 5 rounds of funding, with no details about funds awarded in April of 2011.

Time permitting look for a future analysis of the data found in these materials.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.
 

House Housing Subcommiittee Holds Housing Counseling Hearing.

Main web page for hearing is HERE, includes link to testimony and video of hearing.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

New GAO Report on Dodd-Frank Impact on Home Buyers and Mortgage Market.

GAO report is HERE.  Interesting discussion of housing counseling begins on PDF page 54.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.