Yearly Archives: 2016

Consumers Energy is coordinating with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to install buoys this summer to help warn the public to stay out of potentially unsafe areas immediately downstream of hydro facilities.

On July 29, President Obama signed into law H.R. 3700, the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act (HOTMA), which will streamline and reform several federal housing assistance programs. NCSHA and a broad coalition of housing stakeholders have strongly advocated for this bipartisan legislation over the past year.

The U.S. homeownership rate has slowly fallen in recent years to currently its lowest level since 19651, but new research from the National Association of Realtors® reveals that there are affordable metro areas right now with above-average hiring and a large segment of current renters who earn enough income to qualify to buy a home.

With a grant from the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, LISC Boston’s Green Retrofit Initiative will provide two statewide funding opportunities for multifamily affordable housing owners.

Markets in 146 of the approximately 340 metro areas nationwide returned to or exceeded their last normal levels of economic and housing activity in the second quarter of 2016, according to the NAHB/First American Leading Markets Index (LMI) released today. This represents a year-over-year net gain of 66 markets

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) announced that John “Ed” Easley, president of LMC Development, a Lennar Company, has been appointed chairman of NAHB’s Multifamily Leadership Board (MLB). Easley succeeds W. Dean Henry, CEO of Legacy Partners Residential

Builder confidence in the single-family 55+ housing market remains in positive territory in the second quarter with a reading of 57, up one point from the previous quarter, according to the National Association of Home Builders' (NAHB) 55+ Housing Market Index (HMI) released today. This is the ninth consecutive quarter with a reading above 50.

Working with homeowners and businesses in communities across Michigan, Consumers Energy is focusing on delivering energy reliably by clearing trees away from power lines

“Today, by finalizing revised mortgage servicing rules, the CFPB has taken an important step toward improving protections for distressed borrowers,” said John Rao, staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center. “Many homeowners will find it easier to save their homes from foreclosure because of these new rules.”

Consumers Energy has donated nearly $18,000 of furniture, appliances and other office items from its recently retired J.C. Weadock generating plant to Bay County Habitat for Humanity and two other Bay County nonprofit organizations.

Marina Walsh, Vice President of Industry Analysis in the Mortgage Bankers Association's research and economics department, is being honored today as one of Housing Wire's 2016 Women of Influence. This list recognizes a wide range of 43 women who have made an outstanding impact on the mortgage industry as a whole.  Walsh currently leads several ad hoc surveys and programs at MBA focusing on industry benchmarking and servicing

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has launched two new tools as part of its Cities Leading through Energy Analysis and Planning (Cities-LEAP) project. Created by DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the tools are designed to help cities nationwide make more strategic energy decisions based on actual and estimated data and analysis.

The American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI) Summer 2016 Law Review (Volume 24, No. 2) features the results of an empirical study that found “stunning and unacceptable” levels of randomly distributed justice at the trial court level. The study examined 218 essentially identical adversary proceedings filed by Heritage Pacific Financial, LLC, a debt buyer, in California bankruptcy courts against makers of promissory notes who had filed chapter 7 or chapter 13 bankruptcy petitions.

Mortgage applications decreased 3.5 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending July 29, 2016

The Research Institute for Housing America (RIHA) today released a new report, The Affordability of Owner-Occupied Housing in the United States: Economic Perspectives, which looks at four major forms of affordability indexes, compares their methodology, and tests their validity in predicting current and historical features of the housing market. RIHA is a 501(c)(3) trust fund founded by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) and devoted to independent research of housing and mortgage markets. The study was authored by Donald R. Haurin, Professor of Economics, Emeritus, Ohio State University

This past Friday, Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) filed the Reply Brief on the Merits in Murr v. Wisconsin and St. Croix County, PLF’s latest high-profile property rights case at the U.S. Supreme Court.The case is now fully briefed, and the justices are expected to schedule oral argument for some time this fall.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) have announced the number of veterans experiencing homelessness in the United States has been cut nearly in half since 2010. The data revealed a 17 percent decrease in veteran homelessness between January 2015 and January 2016 — quadruple the previous year’s annual decline — and a 47 percent decrease since 2010.