Yearly Archives: 2016

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today announced the agency is considering a new rule to ensure that individuals and families residing in public housing actually need housing assistance should their incomes grow well beyond the levels required for their initial admission. HUD is seeking public comment on methods to address ‘over-income’ public housing residents who continue to reside in public housing as other families wait for vacant units to become available

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) today published a new consolidated handbook to guide lenders on underwriting all FHA-insured multifamily housing construction and rehabilitation transactions. FHA’s new MAP Guide offers a new operating manual for multifamily underwriting through the Multifamily Accelerated Processing program. Read FHA’s new updated MAP Guide.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted today to advance legislation that will expand opportunities for homeownership. H.R. 3700, the "Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act," includes a number of initiatives that have strong support from the National Association of Realtors®, who hailed the vote as important progress for home buyers and sellers.

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking creative ideas from the real estate development community to redevelop the Thomas J. McIntyre Federal Building in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. GSA will use these ideas for planning purposes and to make strategic decisions regarding the future use of the property while providing the City of Portsmouth a potential economic development opportunity.

Bipartisan reforms to improve the effectiveness of public housing programs were approved by the House on Tuesday by a vote of 427-0. The reforms included in the “Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act” update and improve outdated rules and regulations in order to give state and local housing agencies and private owners more flexibility to meet key program objectives.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, today spoke in support of hydropower as the Senate resumed consideration of her broad, bipartisan energy bill. Murkowski highlighted the bill’s provisions and amendments offered by her Senate colleagues to advance the use of hydropower – a clean, renewable baseload energy resource – in her home state of Alaska and across the country.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Sen. Sherrod Brown, Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, sent a letter requesting information from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) about the Distressed Asset Stabilization Program and the loss mitigation options available to homeowners whose loans are sold through the program.

More than 110,000 housing industry professionals packed the aisles at Design & Construction Week,[tm] held Jan. 19-22 in Las Vegas. This marked the third year of the co-located mega-event, which included the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) International Builders' Show (IBS), the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show, the International Window Coverings Expo and The International Surface Event.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) welcomed the news that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) restored $3 million in program funding to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and sees it as another step to get the Commonwealth back on track toward its clean water commitments

David H. Stevens, CMB, President & CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association, released the following statement applauding FHFA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on their work to finalize the independent dispute resolution program, which is the capstone of the revised representation and warranty framework

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today awarded Cathy Pharis, Managing Director and Head of FHA Platform for Wells Fargo Multifamily Captial (WFMC), Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., with the 2016 Commercial Real Estate Finance (CREF) Distinguished Service Award at the Association's 26th annual CREF/Multifamily Housing Convention & Expo held in Orlando, FL.

U.S. Reps. Bill Pascrell Jr. (NJ-09), Frank Pallone Jr. (NJ-06), Albio Sires (NJ-08), Donald Payne Jr. (NJ-10), Donald Norcross (NJ-01), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12) sent a letter to Gov. Chris Christie in an effort to understand why New Jersey missed out on over $300 million of federal flood-mitigation funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under the National Disaster Resilience Competition.

Consumers Energy awarded commemorative signs to 33 Michigan Centennial and Sesquicentennial Farms in 2015, recognizing them as being working farms owned by the same families for 100 and 150 years.

David H. Stevens, CMB, President and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today delivered the following remarks at the association's 26th Annual Commercial/Real Estate Finance/Multifamily Housing (CREF) Convention & Expo

More than 200 Habitat for Humanity leaders and supporters, including several Habitat homeowners from around the country, gathered in Washington, D.C., for Habitat’s 10th annual Habitat on the Hill conference, Feb. 2-4. The event brings together Habitat representatives to urge federal lawmakers to support programs and policies that promote safe, decent and affordable homeownership opportunities and, in turn, a healthy housing market and economy as a whole

A Chinese auto parts maker that is building a $140 million production facility in Greenville is the 1,000th business to benefit from a Consumers Energy program that rewards energy-saving measures in new construction projects.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its year-end ranking of commercial and multifamily mortgage servicers' volumes as of December 31, 2015. At the top of the list of firms is Wells Fargo Bank N.A. with $501.5 billion in U.S. master and primary servicing, followed by PNC Real Estate/Midland Loan Services with $485.2 billion, Berkadia Commercial Mortgage LLC with $225.0 billion, KeyBank N.A. with $195.7 billion, and GEMSA Loan Services, L.P. with $101.5 billion.

David H. Stevens, CMB, President and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) announced today that the trade group is collaborating with Pepperdine University Graziadio School of Business and Management as they offer a six-month Executive Certificate in Commercial Real Estate, beginning in March 2016. The program aims to accelerate higher-level career opportunities for commercial real estate professionals.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) projects originations of commercial and multifamily mortgages will grow to $511 billion in 2016, an increase of 3 percent from 2015 volumes and slightly more than the previous record of $508 billion originated in 2007. Mortgage banker originations of multifamily mortgages are forecast at $202 billion in 2016, with total multifamily lending at $262 billion.

Eleven percent or $183.3 billion of $1.7 trillion of outstanding commercial and multifamily mortgages held by non-bank lenders and investors will mature in 2016, a 51 percent increase from the $121.0 billion that matured in 2015, according to today's release of the Mortgage Bankers Association's 2015 Commercial Real Estate/Multifamily Survey of Loan Maturity Volumes. Maturities will grow to $208 billion in 2017