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FHFA Uniform Appraisal Dataset Aggregate Statistics: A New Resource to Provide Insights on Home Valuation
Introduction Home valuation through the appraisal process is a vital component of the home purchase, mortgage lending, and equity-building processes. The public release of appraisal data may offer a new resource to generate valuable insights. Publicly sharing appraisal data improves market...
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Reducing Valuation Bias by Addressing Appraiser and Property Valuation Commentary
Key Takeaways Examples of overt references to race, ethnicity, and other prohibited bases under federal fair lending laws in appraisals and other property descriptions persist, indicating the continued presence of valuation bias. Ongoing failure to address appraiser consideration of prohibited...
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Land Use Regulation and Enterprise Market Share Across Cities
Housing production has been on a downward trend for many decades. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, housing starts fell to their lowest level since at least the 1960s, on a per capita basis. Since then, housing production has recovered somewhat, but still remains below the level of...
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What Types of Mortgages Do Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Acquire?
The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA) imposes several important data requirements on FHFA. Section 1324 requires FHFA to provide to Congress an Annual Housing Report on the performance of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (the Enterprises) in the previous year. As an input to FHFA's Annual...
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Mortgage Performance During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Since March, the United States experienced a surge in job losses that has created a concern about the ability of homeowners to pay their mortgages. One way of measuring homeowners’ ability to make their mortgage payments in the current environment is to calculate the incidence of past-due mortgages...
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Who Did the Increase in Conforming Loan Limits Cover in 2019?
Each calendar year, statute requires FHFA to adjust the conforming loan limits (CLLs) by formula to reflect the national rate of increase in home prices over the past year. More detail on that process can be found in our FAQs. The CLLs represent the upper limit on the size of mortgages eligible...
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Lowering the Language Barrier: Helping Borrowers with Limited English Proficiency amid Uncertain Times
Over the past decade in the United States, the percentage of Hispanic/Latino and Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) populations has increased to 18.5 and 6 percent, respectively. Hispanic/Latino and AAPI communities make up a majority of the estimated 26 million people in the country considered...
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Mortgage Translations Clearinghouse Adds Resources for Chinese American Homebuyers
Homeownership is part of the American Dream. To help make this dream a reality, lenders, real estate professionals, and housing counselors serve as trusted advisors to prospective homebuyers — providing education and guidance. But for millions of Americans with limited English proficiency (LEP) and...
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Counting Down to Launch of the UMBS
Implementation of the Uniform Mortgage-Backed Security (UMBS) is on track as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the Enterprises) finish preparations for the June 3 launch. This has been a multiyear strategic process, and FHFA, the Enterprises, and the broader industry continue to hit key milestones toward...
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FHFA Working Paper Unveils New Land Price Index
How much is the land under a house worth? For researchers, this simple question has been difficult to answer for one main reason: for a typical residential property, the land and the house are purchased at the same time, for a single price. A new FHFA working paper, authored by FHFA’s William Larson...