Safeguard Properties - HR 3146 21st Century FHA Housing Act of 2009

HR 3146 21st Century FHA Housing Act of 2009

Wednesday, 15 July 2009

United States HR 3146, or the “21 Century FHA Housing Act of 2009,” was introduced on July 9, 2009, and referred to the house Committee on Financial Services.

Summary of HR 3146, "The 21 Century FHA Housing Act of 2009 ."

The bill includes a number of provisions relating to HUD and the FHA. The main intent of this legslation is to increase the size and effectiveness of the FHA.

Provides for additional FHA personnel as necessary and technological upgrades of HUD as necessary.
Provides for personnel training and education of any HUD personnel that work with FHA mortgage insurance programs.
- The training would focus on improving the quality and consistency of responses provided by government personnel to ensure that lenders can rely on information from office to office and to prevent lenders from soliciting different answer to the same question from different centers.
The bill also authorizes several HUD studies.
- Requires HUD to conduct on ongoing review of the first 90-days of single family household mortgages begun within the last 12-months, insured under this act, and delinquent for at least 60-days. The goal of the review is to determine which mortgages should not be originated or insured.
- Requires HUD to analyze lender performance over a one-year study period to promote earlier identification of problem lenders and allow earlier intervention and sanctions.
- A uthorizes HUD to carry out “demonstration programs” to analyze the effectiveness of alternative methods of avoiding foreclosure on mortgages insured by FHA.

The act includes a sense from Congress that warehouse loans are a “critical link in the housing finance chain. The bill finds that lenders use warehouse lines of credit for up to 40% of mortgage loans and nearly 55% of FHA loans. At the same time, warehouse lending availability has dropped 90%, possibly creating a shortfall in home mortgage availability of hundred of billions of dollars. Congress believes that the decline in warehouse lending has resulted in borrowers facing rising costs and reduced credit access, possibly undermining the housing market recovery. Thus, the Congress believes that the US Treasury, HUD, and the FHAg should use their existing authority to support warehouse lenders.

Miscellaneous provisions of the act stipulate that the Secretary of HUD is not subject to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, and that HUD should work with other government agencies to set comparable salary tables. A similar bill is expected to be introduced into the US Senate within the next few weeks

To view the full text of the Bill, please click here.

About Safeguard
Safeguard Properties is the largest privately held field services company in the country. Located in Cleveland, Ohio and founded in 1990 by Robert Klein, Safeguard has grown from a regional preservation company with a few employees and a handful of contractors performing services in the Midwest, to a national company with over 700 employees. Safeguard is supported by a nationwide network of subcontractors able to perform any requested superintendence, preservation, and maintenance functions, as well as numerous ancillary services in the U.S., the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.