Press Releases
April 17, 2020
Move Puts Communities of Color, Low- and Moderate-Income Families, and Rural Communities at Risk
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) yesterday issued a final rule that exempts more than 1,700 additional financial companies from reporting Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data about their lending. HMDA was enacted to combat lending discrimination by requiring companies to report public data on their mortgage lending, including information on borrower race and ethnicity. The reported information is a critical tool for researchers, advocates, and policymakers...
March 16, 2020
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) released Treat Fannie and Freddie as Utilities, a report finding that the best model for regulating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs) outside of conservatorship is utility rate-of-return regulation. Under this type of regulation, the GSEs would pool risk nationally and offer broad access to affordable mortgage credit nationwide.
The report recommends that the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the independent agency regulating Fannie and Freddie since the 2008 financial crisis,...
January 24, 2020
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Eric Stein, Senior Vice President at Self-Help, a community development lender and parent of the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), released the following statement after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced, in a letter to Members of Congress, that its forthcoming proposal will not rely solely on a loan’s debt-to-income ratio (DTI) in determining whether it is a qualified mortgage (QM) after the expiration of the “GSE Patch,” which grants an exemption for loans eligible for sale to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:
We welcome Director Kraninger’s...
January 7, 2020
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released a new proposed Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule that would reduce the financial pressure local governments, states, and public housing agencies have to meet their fair housing obligations. HUD published its AFFH rule in 2015. In 2018, HUD effectively suspended the rule and removed the AFFH data and mapping tool. The tool was used to access HUD-provided data to conduct the fair housing analysis.
The AFFH provision was an integral part of the Fair Housing Act of 1968. In that...
December 12, 2019
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced a proposal to reform the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)—the landmark anti-redlining law enacted nine years after the Fair Housing Act of 1968 to stop persistent discrimination in lending.
The Federal Reserve, which shares a regulatory oversight role on CRA along with the OCC and FDIC, did not sign the new proposal.
Center for Responsible Lending Executive Vice President Nikitra Bailey released the following statement:
Created in response to...
October 28, 2019
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson announced today that his agency reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on the use of the False Claims Act for Federal Housing Administration single family loans.
Center for Responsible Lending President Mike Calhoun made the following statement:
CRL applauds HUD and the DOJ for working together and signing a memorandum of understanding addressing how the agencies will confer on False Claims Act prosecutions. CRL also supports FHA’s efforts to revise the annual lender...
September 5, 2019
WASHINGTON, DC - Yesterday, in response to a Presidential Memorandum on Federal Housing Finance Reform, the U.S. Department of Treasury and U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development released recommendations for reform of the nation’s housing finance system.
The National Urban League, Center for Responsible Lending, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, NAACP, National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development, National Fair Housing Alliance, UnidosUS (formerly the National Council of La Raza), National Community Reinvestment Coalition, and the NAACP...
July 31, 2019
WASHINGTON, D.C. – It's been reported today that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will rescind its enforcement of the 2013 Disparate Impact rule, a standard central to the Fair Housing Act meant to ensure that all families are treated fairly when securing housing and other housing-related services such as lending and insurance. In its place, HUD has proposed a rule which guts one of the most effective tools for redressing discrimination in housing. This action severely weakens an important enforcement tool that is critical for combatting ongoing forms of...
July 8, 2019
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) released A Smarter Qualified Mortgage Can Benefit Borrowers, Taxpayers, and the Economy, a report urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to take timely steps to ensure widespread access to safe and sustainable loans. Unless the CFPB revises its mortgage rule under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the Dodd-Frank Act), an expiring provision will cause a significant number of mortgages to face new legal liability, and these loans likely would not be originated at all or would have...
June 25, 2019
WASHINGTON, DC – Today Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) released its annual report, The State of the Nation’s Housing 2019. (PDF) Published annually since 1988, this year’s report again identifies recent trends and issues facing the housing industry. Key to this year’s findings are:
In 2019, the cost of a median-priced home rose by 4% to $261,600, outpacing the growth of median household income for the seventh straight year.
The price-to-income ratios rose in 85 of the nation’s largest markets last year.
More than 60% of home mortgages issued in the...