Affordable housing

Consumer advocates and mortgage industry officials are urging Sandra Thompson, the new acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to undo many policies that her predecessor, Mark Calabria, put in place over the past year.

Financial inclusion is the civil rights issue of our generation — and getting more Americans, especially younger and minority families, into decent, affordable housing is a critical step on the ladder to financial capability, writes a board member of the National Credit Union Administration.

The Supreme Court decision cleared the way for further revisions to the agreements between the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Treasury, which could include dismissing the January changes.

Gordon is currently president of the National Community Stabilization Trust, a nonprofit organization that promotes neighborhood revitalization and housing affordability.

Thompson, who was most recently the deputy director of the FHFA’s Division of Housing and Mission Goals, replaces Mark Calabria, who was fired Wednesday afternoon.

With residential supply severely lagging behind demand, redeveloping unused office space into multifamily properties seems like a perfect solution, but it’ll take governmental collaboration and tax breaks to make such projects financially compelling, developers say.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development reinstituted the “affirmatively furthering fair housing" measure, which the Trump administration had argued was overly prescriptive, and promised a later rulemaking to bolster the policy.

The funding requests break sharply with the Trump administration's calls to eliminate key housing funds and backing for community development financial institutions. The White House also wants to substantially increase the budgets of the Treasury Department and the Small Business Administration.

Reviving a long-dormant loan guarantee program could go a long way toward restocking the supply of starter homes and helping households of modest means create wealth, writes the President and CEO of University Bank.

Groups active in low-income and rural housing expressed frustration that the post-pandemic resumption of long-term goal-setting didn’t do more to raise the bar.

The end of the refinancing boom and impending rise in rates are not the only challenges lenders face. As one observer put it, they "can't make loans on homes that don't exist."

If passed, the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act introduced last week could spur development of 2 million rental units for low- and moderate-income households over the next decade, writes the president of Enterprise Housing Credit Investments

The city is working with a nonprofit that aims to sell some of the city's most affordable houses to lower-income buyers rather than developers.

The SmartBuy program, offered by the Illinois Housing Development Authority, has drawn interest from out-of-state buyers too.

As one of the few mortgage firms that finances singlewides, AFR’s decision to offer the product will lend momentum to major government-sponsored loan buyers’ efforts to expand their manufactured housing programs.

HUD must stop localities from excluding manufactured homes from their communities, writes Lesli McCullum Gooch, chief executive officer of the Manufactured Housing Institute.

The mortgage giants were authorized to give just over $1 billion combined to the National Housing Trust Fund and the Capital Magnet Fund this year, the highest contribution ever. The amount reflects refinancing growth in 2020.

The former president of the private mortgage insurer is coming out of retirement to direct the bank's missions on affordable housing, community and economic development.

The plan is aimed at low- and moderate-income communities, and may enable 60,000 individuals and families to purchase homes, the bank said in a statement Wednesday.

Though the pandemic recession has driven up the delinquency rate on Federal Housing Administration loans, the president's appointees are widely expected to reduce mortgage insurance premiums by at least 25 basis points to make home loans less expensive.