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.

Changes being considered by the Federal Housing Finance Agency would make liquidity more expensive and complicated to obtain. But first, those reforms will have to overcome the political power of a wide range of financial institutions that benefit from the status quo.

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 lack of affordable housing is becoming an increasingly acute political and economic problem. But a few small tweaks to a Federal Housing Administration loan program could unlock prospective homeowners' potential to solve that problem for themselves.

A lack of affordable starter homes, increasing homelessness and stubbornly high prices for the homes that already exist have created a pickle that only careful planning and political buy-in can solve.

As the Federal Housing Finance Agency considers how to prepare the system for the future, it can keep member liquidity steady while still boosting affordable housing.

It would be unwise to restrict the use of Home Loan bank advances to housing-related lending.

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.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency may have gotten more than it bargained for in its review of the Home Loan banks, but there is little doubt that the effort will result in significant structural change.

Federal Home Loan banks aren't doing enough to address the shortage of affordable housing in the U.S., FHFA Director Sandra Thompson says. Some of their members are instead using advances to manage liquidity and perhaps engaging in crypto-related and other activities that put the Deposit Insurance Fund at risk, she says.

The homeownership gap between Black and white populations has widened in the years since the Great Recession, putting obstacles in the way of achieving wealth for a large percentage of Americans. How did we get here, and what do the housing and home lending industries need to do to change the current course?

A heated panel discussion sponsored by the Federal Housing Finance Agency raised questions about the funding, structure and mission of the Home Loan banks.

Inflated home values were already making homeownership unattainable for millions of Americans; now it's interest rates. To change this dynamic, we need some creative thinking.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency's tangible capital rule could prevent some banks from accessing advances from the Federal Home Loan Bank system in a rising interest rate environment.