Housing

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Sandra Thompson is pushing for a quick launch of pilot programs at the 11 Federal Home Loan banks to help underserved communities after its report this week prescribed major reforms to the system.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency says it wants to more closely tether Federal Home Loan bank advances to housing and community development. Doing so will first involve clearly defining the banks' mission through regulation.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency said in a long-awaited report that it will set up new guardrails for the Federal Home Loan Banks to ensure that the institutions are serving a housing-centric mission.

The Department of Justice reached a $9 million settlement Wednesday with Westerly, R.I.-based Washington Trust over race-based lending discrimination and redlining in the state, saying the bank denied lending services to Black and Hispanic neighborhoods from 2016 to 2021.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a mortgage report based on statistics from 2022 and is looking for ways to simplify the refinance process while considering changes to mortgage servicing standards.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said inflation relief from the housing sector is "in the pipeline" but some say strong underlying demand and an inadequate housing supply could disrupt future rate pauses or cuts.

The FDIC is launching joint ventures to market $33 billion of commercial real estate loans from the failed Signature Bank, prioritizing its statutory obligation to preserve low-income housing availability.

A former insider wants the Federal Home Loan Bank System's regulator to require its 11 regional banks to balance members' liquidity needs with the system's public mission to fund affordable housing and community development programs.

The average profit margin on the sale of median-priced single-family homes and condos fell to 44% last quarter, from a peak of 56% in the second quarter of 2022, according to data published Thursday by Attom, a real estate analytics firm.

The Federal Home Loan Banks claim that liquidity in-and-of-itself supports affordable housing, while the Federal Housing Finance Agency seems to think the mission should be more directly tethered to housing.