Bill over at Calculated Risk put together an excellent survey of Government Housing Support programs. It is reproduced with permission here in its entirety:
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“We were very careful from the beginning … to say that we are going to focus the bulk of the financial force on bringing interest rates and mortgage rates down to cushion the fall in housing prices and help stabilize home values, which will feed into people’s basic sense of financial stability.”
To help keep this straight, here is a list of the status of a number of programs:
Proponents of the $8,000 credit for first-time buyers and the $6,500 credit for move-up buyers made it clear during the debate on Capitol Hill that the benefits would not be renewed when they expire. And a lobbyist for the National Assn. of Realtors confirmed that at the group’s annual convention last month.
Lawmakers “made us promise practically in blood that we would not come back” for another extension, Linda Goold, the Realtor group’s director of tax policy, told her members.
During the debate, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), a former real estate broker and a longtime proponent of the tax credit, promised his colleagues, “This is the last extension.”
[T]he Federal Reserve is in the process of purchasing $1.25 trillion of agency mortgage-backed securities and about $175 billion of agency debt. In order to promote a smooth transition in markets, the Committee is gradually slowing the pace of these purchases, and it anticipates that these transactions will be executed by the end of the first quarter of 2010.
The program that Treasury established under HERA to support the mortgage market by purchasing Government-Sponsored Enterprise (GSE) -guaranteed mortgage-backed securities (MBS) will end on December 31, 2009. By the conclusion of its MBS purchase program, Treasury anticipates that it will have purchased approximately $220 billion of securities across a range of maturities.
In order to provide servicers an opportunity to remain focused on converting eligible borrowers to permanent HAMP modifications, effective today and lasting through January 31, 2010, Treasury is implementing a review period for all active HAMP trial modifications scheduled to expire on or before January 31, 2010. Active HAMP trial modifications include trial modifications that have been submitted to the Treasury system of record that have not been cancelled by the servicer.
During this review period, servicers should continue to convert eligible borrowers in active HAMP trial modifications to permanent HAMP modifications as quickly as possible in accordance with existing program guidance. Servicers may not cancel an active HAMP trial modification during this period for any reason other than failure to meet the HAMP property eligibility requirements.
Treasury is now amending the [Preferred Stock Purchase Agreements (PSPAs)] to allow the cap on Treasury’s funding commitment under these agreements to increase as necessary to accommodate any cumulative reduction in net worth over the next three years. At the conclusion of the three year period, the remaining commitment will then be fully available to be drawn per the terms of the agreements.
•Focus on enforcement and lender accountability
•Reduce the maximum seller concession from 6% to 3%.
•Raise the minimum FICO score.
•Increase the up-front cash for borrower (it isn’t clear if this is an increase in the downpayment, currently a minimum of 3.5%, or requiring the borrower to pay more fees).
•Increase FHA insurance premiums.
Posted by CalculatedRisk on 12/27/2009 05:52:00 PM
