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The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has announced matchmaking events throughout 2015 which will expand the American Supplier Initiative. Created in 2012, the American Supplier Initiative supports American manufacturing by investing in the small businesses that comprise America’s suppliers.
In an effort to make home buying more accessible for first-timers, President Barack Obama has set out to decrease the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage-insurance premiums. The annual fees the FHA charges will be dropped by o.5 percentage points, according to two people with knowledge of Obama’s plans.
The announcement is anticipated to be made in a speech in Phoenix on Thursday, according to Bloomberg.
The FHA is required to keep enough money to cover all its projected losses in its $1.1 trillion portfolio and must manage a two percent cushion of its value —a level not projected to come until fiscal 2016.
In the news, private mortgage insurers have taken a nose dive because they can’t compete with the government program.
This is a developing news story.
Long Beach – Congresswoman Judy Chu was the opening keynote address at the NAWRB Inaugural Conference on Oct. 29 and provided insight on how the Committee of Ways and Means and recently introduced legislation, Women’s Small Business Ownership Act of 2014, impact small businesses and give women-owned businesses equal treatment.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) appointed Segundo Pereira as the new Director and Officer of the Corporation for the Office of Minority and Women Inclusion. Pereira will replace Andrew Gray, who accepted a position at JPMorgan Chase.
San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro was approved by the U.S. Senate Banking Committee today as head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Castro was previously nominated for the position by President Obama earlier this year.
Mel Watt, Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), is facing mounting pressure regarding his decision to lift a temporary suspension on allocating funds to the national Housing Trust Fund (HTF) and Capital Magnet Fund (CMF). With the lifted suspension, 4.2 basis points of each dollar of the unpaid principal balance for new business purchases from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be diverted towards the funds.
Enacted in the summer of 2008, the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA) created the HTF and CMF. According to Housing and Urban Development (HUD), HTF “is a new affordable housing production program that will complement existing Federal, state and local efforts to increase and preserve the supply of decent, safe, and sanitary affordable housing.” Extremely low- and very low-income households are eligible for the program. Updated income limits for extremely low- and very low-income households for each county in the U.S. can be found on HUD’s website.
The HTF works by providing funds to eligible state and state-designated entities for activities that include real property acquisition, relocation assistance, demolition, and site improvements. In regards to eligible households, assistance can appear in the form of deferred loan payments, grants, interest subsidies, and equity investments.
Similar to the HTF, the CMF promotes affordable housing but utilizes Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) and non-profit housing developers as the vehicles for creating inexpensive housing options. The CMF can also use funds for community facilities and economic development projects that encourage affordable housing. As a competitive grant program, the CMF is unique in that it was created to increase investments and attract private capital.
Although HERA established the allocation of funds to the HTF and CMF, it was temporarily suspended when the Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) were placed into conservatorship under the FHFA. The steep financial woes generated by the subprime mortgage crisis led to the eventual conservatorship decision.
Fast-forward to December 2014, Watt wrote a separate letter to the respective CEOs of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae that explicitly called for the termination of the suspension on allocating funds to the HTF and CMF in order to help bolster affordable housing.
According to 12 U.S.C. § 4567 (b), the suspension was due to allocations violating one or more of the following:
Watt’s decision and his reasoning is the epicenter for the arguments of both proponents and opponents. In his letters to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, Watt used four main reasons to support his decision which is summarized below:
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