Housing starts

Housing starts for 2009-2012 is the subject of a report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Factors that determine housing starts include "the underlying demand for new housing units, especially the role of demographics; cyclical and financial conditions, such as unemployment rates and lending standards; and the number of excess vacant units."

CBO presents three possible scenarios:

• Optimistic - housing starts already at their trough; rebound begins late this year, back to underlying levels by end of 2009
• Cyclical downturn - housing starts remain below recent levels through 2009; construction recovers during 2010, rising to underlying rates in early 2011
• Pessimistic - housing starts continue decline to end of 2009; slow rebound in construction, held back by vacant units and weak household formation; starts would not return to underlying rates until second half of 2012

The Outlook for Housing Starts, 2009 to 2012 (pdf, 36pp/180kB), Nov. 2008

Fannie and Freddie costs

In the last two days the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has issued two items relating to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: a letter to the House Budget Committee from CBO Director Peter Orszag and a cost estimate of a pending bill.

Orszag's letter responded to the proposal released July 14 by the Treasury Dept., specifically Treasury's temporary authority to purchase equity in the housing finance government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that include Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan (FHL) Banks. The letter stated in part:

Taking into account the probability of various possible outcomes, CBO estimates that the expected value of the federal budgetary cost from enacting this proposal would be $25 billion over fiscal years 2009 and 2010. That estimate accounts for both the possibility that federal funds would not have to be expended under the new authority and the possibility that the government would have to use that authority to provide assistance to the GSEs.

CBO's cost estimates of H.R. 3221 (pdf, 636 pp.), the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, as amended by the Senate on July 11, 2008, span fiscal years 2008-2018. The bill includes Treasury's temporary authority to purchase equity in the GSEs. CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that enacting this legislation would:

• Increase direct spending by $41.7 billion over the 2008-2018 period, and
• Increase revenues by about $16.8 billion over the 2008-2018 period.

In total, those changes would increase budget deficits (or reduce future surpluses) by about $24.9 billion over the 2008-2018 period.

CBO's Estimate of Cost of the Administration's Proposal to Authorize Federal Financial Assistance for the Government-Sponsored Enterprises for Housing (pdf, 10pp/60kB), July 22, 2008

H.R. 3221, Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (pdf, 5pp/80kB), July 23, 2008

Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac: FAQ

"Recent turmoil in the housing and financial markets have caused concern over the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...." begins a 6-page FAQ issued yesterday by the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are chartered by Congress, their "safety and soundness" regulated by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO). CRS states: OFHEO "has repeated assurances that Fannie and Freddie have adequate capital, but as highly leveraged financial intermediaries Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have limited resources against losses."

Among the FAQs:

• Why are Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's stock prices declining so much?
• What risks do Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac face in today's economic environment?
• What risks do Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac create for the U.S. government?
• What risks do Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's financial problems create for homeowners and those planning to become homeowners?

Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's Financial Problems: Frequently Asked Questions, RS22916 (pdf, 6pp/72kB), July 15, 2008, from Open CRS

See also: The Freddie and Fannie Fallout, New York Times, 7.13.08. The author writes:

By issuing debt, (Fannie and Freddie) guarantee or own more than $5 trillion in home mortgages. Got that? $5 trillion.

Because the federal government established the companies, investors view them as backed, at least implicitly, by taxpayers. And that implied guarantee is what drove Fannie and Freddie’s business models.

Mortgage crisis - what states can do

On May 29, the Brookings Institution issued a paper on what state governments can do to mitigate the impact of mortgage foreclosures. It suggests 10 actions states can take in three areas: mitigating the effect of foreclosure on borrowers, mitigating the impact of foreclosure on neighborhoods and at-risk communities, and looking forward to a rational housing policy. The paper also presents potential property recycling scenarios and model licensing standards for mortgage brokers.

Tackling the Mortgage Crisis: 10 Action Steps for State Government (pdf, 30pp/1.45MB), May 2008

Hungry, homeless and younger

"Hunger and homelessness are not simply part of the 'natural order of things'. They represent inexcusable failures of political will and human imagination," Rep. McGovern said. "All of us -- at all levels of government and throughout society -- must rededicate ourselves to addressing the needs of ALL Americans." *

The U.S. Conference of Mayors surveyed 23 major cities during 2006 seeking information and estimates from each city on:

1. the demand for emergency food assistance and emergency shelter and the capacity of local agencies to meet that demand;
2. the causes of hunger and homelessness and the demographics of the populations experiencing these problems;
3. exemplary programs or efforts in the cities to respond to hunger and homelessness;
4. the availability of affordable housing for low income people; and
5. the outlook for the future and the impact of the economy on hunger and homelessness.

Among the mayors' findings:

Families and individuals relied on emergency food assistance facilities both in emergencies and as a steady source of food over long periods of time.

Unemployment and other employment-related problems lead the list of causes of hunger identified by the city officials.

Single men comprise 51 percent of the homeless population, families with children 30 percent, single women 17 percent, and unaccompanied youth 2 percent.

An average of 23 percent of the requests for emergency shelter by homeless people overall and 29 percent of the requests by homeless families alone are estimated to have gone unmet during the last year.

The mayors' forecast for 2007 :

Seventy-two percent of the survey cities expect that their requests for emergency food assistance will increase in 2007.

During 2007 requests for emergency food assistance by families with children are expected to increase in 95 percent of the survey cities...

Sixty-eight percent of the survey cities expect that requests for emergency shelter to increase in 2007.

Seventy-five percent of the survey cities expect that requests for shelter by families to increase in 2007.

Hunger and Homelessness Survey - A Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness in America's Cities. A 23-City Survey, December 2006
(2006, pdf, 96pp/832kB)

photo from Survey cover page
* from Hunger and Homelessness Survey press release (pdf)

Resale-restricted, owner-occupied & affordable

The National Housing Institute (NHI) is an independent nonprofit organization that examines "key issues affecting affordable housing and community development practitioners and their supporters...housing, jobs, safety, and education, with an emphasis on housing and economic development." An NIH 2006 study, jointly funded by the Surdna and Ford foundations, examines shared equity homeownership. The study focuses on "limited equity cooperative; the community land trust; and deed-restricted homes with durable covenants regulating their occupancy, eligibility, and affordability." The author writes:

Public policy has been a key factor in determining where alternative models of homeownership will thrive. Below the federal level, the three policies most favorable to the growth of shared equity homeownership are durable affordability, subsidy retention, and equitable taxation. Where these policies are lacking, resale-restricted housing tends to be in short supply.

Density allowances can be too low, subsidies too meager, and the political will too weak in the face of community resistance to develop, market, and manage resale-restricted, owner-occupied housing.

However, the study continues:

Well over a hundred community land trusts exist across the country, from Burlington, Vermont to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Limited equity cooperatives, although predominantly an urban housing type, have become a more widely used vehicle for building stable homeownership and preserving affordability in mobile home parks from New Hampshire to California. With the dramatic growth in inclusionary housing during the past decade, tens of thousands of shared equity condominium units have been created across the country...

Shared Equity Homeownership - The Changing Landscape of Resale-Restricted, Owner-Occupied Housing
by John Emmeus Davis, Research Fellow, National Housing Institute
(2006, pdf, 158pp/1.2MB)

Preface available in HTML.

Mixed housing gains, less affordable units

Mentioned in a prior post on the housing rental market, Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) has recently released their annual report, The State of the Nation's Housing 2006. The report finds, "Although house price growth will likely moderate in many areas, sharp drops in house prices are unlikely anytime soon."

Though the outlook for housing markets is overall "favorable," demographic forces, such as the increasing senior populace, the young families, and the growing immigrant and second-generation Americans, will favor rental over for-sale housing. A combination of factors (e.g., unprecedented house price appreciation, land use restrictions) impacts building affordable housing while, according to the study, "From 2001 to 2004 alone, the number of households spending more than half their incomes on housing increased by 14 percent to 15.8 million."

The paradox of today's housing market is that while more people are building home equity than ever before, slow growth in wages for households in the bottom three-quarters of the income distribution is not keeping pace with escalating housing costs. Amidst a housing boom, it is now impossible to build housing at prices anywhere near what low-income households can afford without subsidies.

State and local governments allocate federal block grants with housing trust funds to help create affordable housing. However, for those earning $16,000 or less, the supply of affordable rental units shrunk by more than 13 percent, increasing "the shortfall in units available to these low-income households to 5.4 million."

Making significant headway will be difficult without the combined efforts of all levels of government to expand housing subsidies, create incentives for the private sector to build affordable housing, institute land use policies that reduce the barriers to development, and educate the public about the importance of affordable housing.

The State of the Nation's Housing 2006 (June 2006, pdf, 44 pages/5mB)

Demolition's rental squeeze

Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) reported in their annual report on the state of the nation's rental housing that "The nation is losing approximately 200,000 rental housing units each year due to demolition, significantly compounding the ongoing housing affordability squeeze gripping millions of families." This shrinking rental market affects diverse strata of American society, with "20 percent of all renters have median annual incomes that top $60,000 while 20 percent have incomes below $10,000." The 36 page report went on to find:

Median asking rent rose from $734 in 1994 to $974 in 2004. During the same period, monthly renter income barely grew, rising from $2,272 to $2,348. Seventy percent of the nation's 7 million lowest-incomer renters pay more than half of their income for housing. Lack of adequate funding makes it difficult to preserve, let alone expand, the existing stock of subsidized housing inventory. Despite recent weakness in market rents for better quality rentals, overall rents stand at record levels.

The Joint Center for Housing Studies is affiliated with the Harvard Design School and the Kennedy School of Government. JCHS aims "to educate business leaders, government officials, policy makers, and the public on critical and emerging factors affecting housing and our communities."

The Joint Center for Housing Studies is Harvard University's center for information and research on housing in the United States. The Joint Center analyzes the dynamic relationships between housing markets and economic, demographic, and social trends, providing leaders in government, business, and the non-profit sector with the knowledge needed to develop effective policies and strategies.

America's Rental Housing: Homes for a Diverse Nation
(available in pdf, 5MB, from JCHS)