Housing markets

As policymakers take another crack at housing finance reform, federal leaders and the housing lobby are once again perpetuating the false notion that ending government guarantees would cause the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage to vanish.

The agency should resist renewed calls to lower insurance premiums. Doing so would increase demand and raise home prices, negating any proposed benefits.

Here's a look at the 10 housing markets with the biggest gap between growth in home prices and wages that could indicate a housing bubble is forming.

Credit standards for commercial loans to medium and large firms showed some signs of easing over the last three months of 2017, even though demand stayed relatively unchanged.

Weak profits and the threat of false claims charges are keeping banks out of the market for loans guaranteed by the Federal Housing Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The recently enacted tax reform bill is likely to encourage more consumers to rent instead of buy and tamp down the rapid rise in home prices.

The tax law is expected to eliminate 300,000 affordable housing units over 10 years in part because it will reduce the value of banks’ low-income tax credits, which finance half of all affordable housing units.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and four other Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee are insisting on a recorded vote by the full Senate for the nomination of Brian Montgomery as Federal Housing Administration commissioner.

The government-sponsored enterprises are at the heart of our housing finance problems, not the solutions.

For decades, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac helped working-class Americans get mortgages. That essential and powerful role in the national economy is fading.