Mortgage Market Archives - Page 11 of 18 - Americans for Financial Reform

Letter to Regulators: Coalition Letter on FHA Single-Family Loan Sale Program

FHA mortgages play a crucial role in providing and maintaining access to affordable and sustainable homeownership for low- and moderate-income families and communities of color. If the Loan Sale Program continues in its current unregulated form, FHA borrowers and their communities remain at risk of further harm from non-compliant servicers and private equity loan purchasers. It is crucial that HUD implement strong protections both before and after loans are sold to prevent needless borrower displacement and neighborhood instability.

Letter to Regulators: Comment to HUD on FHA Servicing Defect Taxonomy

Developing clear and appropriate standards for the servicing taxonomy will help ensure that servicers are properly held accountable for non-compliance with FHA’s requirements. It promises to improve the quality of FHA servicing, which in turn will benefit homeowners and the Mutual Mortgage Insurance (MMI) fund. HUD must ensure that its taxonomy tool encompasses these loss mitigation regulations and allows for borrower input into servicer performance in order to truly gauge whether loss mitigation is working for neighborhoods and for the MMI fund.

Letter to HUD: Coalition Letter Asking for DASP Reporting and Deadline Extension Until Reporting Provided

Letter to HUD asking for delay of ANPR until note sale data is released

Fact Sheet: Wall Street Private Equity Landlords Snapping Up Apartment Buildings

Private equity owns over a million U.S. apartment units. Tenants pay a price when corporate landlords buy their buildings. In some cases, private equity buyers have pushed out lower-income tenants – through rent hikes, eviction threats, and more – to flip buildings into high-rent properties to sell for big profits.

Fact Sheet: Continuing Threat of Private Equity Investment in Single Family Rentals

Wall Street private equity funds are continuing to snap up homes to pad their expanding portfolio of rental properties. Institutional investors own nearly a quarter million single-family rental homes. Wall Street landlords often hike rents, avoid repairs, gouge tenants with fees, and are more likely to evict tenants.

A pair of hands writing on paper with a pen

Letters to Regulators: Letter to the OCC, FRB, and FDIC Opposing the Proposed Threshold Increase

AFREF joined a letter to the OCC, FRB, and FDIC opposing the proposed threshold increase.

AFR in the News: During tenure working for banks, Tim Pawlenty thrilled Wall Street, angered consumer advocates (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

“Across party and regional lines, most people think Wall Street has too much influence in Washington. And they think that because it does,” said Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, a consortium of labor unions, consumer groups, liberal think tanks and organizations like AARP.

AFR in the News: Congress rides to the rescue of thriving bankers (Politico)

“I don’t see the real-world problem [the bill] is trying to solve, except the problem of bankers’ not making enough money,” said Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform… [Stanley] said competition alone shouldn’t be the goal. “If we didn’t require airlines to do anything before opening up a new air route, there might be more airlines, but there might be more plane crashes too.”

Joint Letter: AFR and 16 Organizations Oppose HR 2570 — A Bill Promoting Predatory Mortgage Lending

H.R. 2570 would open the door to predatory mortgage lending by making it easier for lenders to steer homeowners into high-cost, abusive deals on certain mortgages, especially on home equity lines of credit and construction loans

Letter to Regulator: AFR, 8 organizations provide detailed recommendations to FHFA to improve language access in the mortgage industry

“The burden of interpreting financial services jargon and communicating with lenders and servicers should not rest solely on borrowers. . . . Expanding access to language services throughout the mortgage process would begin to equalize a system that currently undermines the ability of LEP borrowers to understand the complexities of their future homeownership prospects and to protect their home after purchasing it.”