Federal Debt Freeze Disaster Looming for Housing Market

Should Congress fail to lift the federal debt ceiling limit by August 2, not only would U.S. mortgage interest rates jump sharply, as my colleague Christian Weller recently argued , but government services that are essential to the mortgage markets also would be shut down. The Obama administration would have no choice but to freeze these so-called “nonessential” government services—even though they are anything but nonessential to the U.S. housing market.

A failure to increase the debt limit would force the federal government to shut down all government activities deemed “nonessential” to the security and well-being of Americans, including most administrative activities at the Federal Housing Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Social Security Administration. In the aftermath of the housing and financial crises that occurred in the last years of the Bush administration, private mortgage financing essentially disappeared, and lenders are requiring much tighter underwriting for new mortgages. As a result, these agencies now play a central role in the mortgage markets, especially for the first-time, moderate-income, and minority homebuyers most critical for a housing recovery.

An extended federal debt ceiling impasse would shut down these critical activities, removing many potential homebuyers from the market and causing significant delays in mortgage approvals for everyone else. This would cause a devastating new shock to our extremely fragile housing markets, exacerbating the weaknesses already illustrated by the latest Case-Shiller numbers .

How would this happen? Let’s begin with the Federal Housing Administration. In the post-crisis world, private mortgage financing is but nonexistent, leaving the government to fill the vacuum. Consequently, FHA today is a key source of mortgages, particularly for first-time homebuyers and other demographic groups who are critical for restoring some equilibrium to our still-ailing housing markets.

Currently, FHA is the only major source of financing that accepts loans with down payments of less than 20 percent, which makes it particularly important for low- and middle-income borrowers, for minority borrowers, and particularly for first-time homebuyers. FHA accounted for nearly 40 percent of all purchase mortgages through the third quarter of 2010, the most recent period for which FHA’s regulator provides data, and an even higher percentage of first-time homebuyers. What’s more, FHA accounted for 60 percent of African American home purchases and 61 percent of Latino home purchases in 2009, the last year for which such data are readily available.

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Federal Debt Freeze Disaster Looming for Housing Market
Federal Debt Freeze Disaster Looming for Housing Market

Then there are the key administrative activities at the IRS and Social Security Administration that underpin the approval of new mortgage loans. Following the financial crisis, mortgage lenders adopted much tighter mortgage underwriting standards,



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The study was performed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse  (TRAC), which is an data organization under the Syracuse University umbrella. While the numbers are pretty much are what they are, Social Security Commissioner, Michael Astrue, questions the significance of the increase of pending appeals. Commissioner Astrue thinks the more meaningful measure is in the faster processing and decision times produced by the SSA. Like stated in the  Fayetteville Observer article from early June , Commissioner Astrue's goal is to drop the waiting time to 270 days by 2013 from the 350+ day national average that we are currently seeing in 2011. With federal budget cuts and no new hearing offices opening up, this is an uphill battle, but one that Commissioner Astrue feels they will be close. This blog has been prepared by Hardison & Cochran for informational purposes only and not as legal advice. The reading of this blog does not constitute an attorney-client relationship. An attorney-client relationship does not begin until the attorney is hired to represent your claim in writing. Please do not act upon any information read within this blog without first seeking legal counsel within your state.


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