Yearly Archives: 2016

The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) has awarded its Edward W. Brooke Housing Leadership Award to U.S. Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA), the Cushing Niles Dolbeare Lifetime Service Award to the longstanding low income housing advocate Nancy Bernstine, and the 2016 Organizing Award to the Coalition for Nonprofit Housing and Economic Development (CNHED) for its Housing for All Campaign. The awards were presented during NLIHC’s Housing Policy Forum and NLIHC's Annual Housing Leadership Awards Reception April 3-5.

Wells Fargo Bank Admits That It Certified that Loans Were Eligible for FHA Mortgage Insurance When They Were Not, and That It Did Not Disclose Thousands of Faulty Mortgage Loans to HUD

Defendants Allegedly Participated in and Ordered the Illegal Discharge of Bilge Wastes Over the Course of Several Years. The owner and captain of the commercial F/V Native Sun, were indicted Thursday for conspiracy, as well as violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA) and Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS).

Mortgage credit availability slightly decreased in March according to the Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI), a report from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) which analyzes data from Ellie Mae's AllRegs® Market Clarity® business information tool.

The office Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today released the most recent statistics, February 2016, on the number of District of Columbia residents employed and D.C. small businesses contracted at federal construction projects in the city resulting from Norton’s legislative work, which show some improvement.  In addition, as part of her oversight efforts to ensure her congressional economic development bills and committee work yield opportunities for D.C. residents and small businesses, Norton will host a roundtable on federal construction projects on Tuesday, May 3, 2016, at 6:00 p.m., in 2253 Rayburn House Office Building.

Consumer delinquencies in key home-related categories fell sharply in last year’s fourth quarter as home values steadily increased, according to results from the American Bankers Association’s Consumer Credit Delinquency Bulletin. Installment loan delinquencies remained near historical lows, matching the third quarter’s composite number

Major brands and other emerging non-utility customers signed 52 percent, or 2,074 megawatts (MW), of the wind power capacity contracted through power purchase agreements (PPA) in 2015. Customers driving this new demand for wind energy include Fortune 500 companies behind household brands, like Tide and Downy, high-tech companies, universities, and major U.S. cities

Commercial and multifamily mortgage bankers closed $503.8 billion of loans in 2015 according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) 2015 Commercial Real Estate/Multifamily Finance Annual Origination Volume Summation.

Vacation home sales cooled off in 2015 but remained at the second highest amount in nearly a decade, while investment purchases increased for the first time in five years, according to an annual survey of residential homebuyers released today by the National Association of Realtors®. Mirroring the strong price growth seen throughout the U.S., the median sales price of both vacation and investment homes surged in 2015.

NAMB—The Association of Mortgage Professionals has commended the House Financial Services Committee for taking up HR 2901, the Flood Insurance Market Parity and Modernization Act of 2015

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) today announced they are co-hosting an annual educational conference from June 13-16, 2016 in San Antonio to address today's pressing environmental health issues.The State of Big Ideas: Moving Environmental Health Outside the Box will include sessions on emerging issues such as Zika virus, preserving affordable housing through healthy home repairs, marijuana, climate change, the Flint, Michigan water crisis and more.

Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) called for strengthening programs at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) critical to informing decisions, ensuring public safety and monitoring natural hazards such as volcanoes, landslides and earthquakes that cause tsunamis. The state of Washington is especially prone to many of these natural disasters.

Hanley Investment Group, a nationally-recognized real estate brokerage and advisory firm specializing in retail property sales, announced today that Executive Vice President Eric Wohl completed the sale-leaseback of a Wendy’s restaurant in San Diego County, California. The 2,806-square-foot single-tenant NNN retail property with a drive-thru is located on .84 acres at 8749 Campo Road, near the intersection of Spring Street and Campo Road in La Mesa. The property sold for $4,125,000, representing a record-setting cap rate for a fee-simple Wendy's sale-leaseback in California.

Santa Ana-Irvine and Monroe, Mich. Top Growth List; Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas, and Bloomington, Ill. Have Largest Declines, Many Energy-Producing Metro Areas Experience Big Losses

Record renter demand continues to fuel apartment industry growth, as evidenced in the National Multifamily Housing Council’s (NMHC) newly released 2016 NMHC 50, the authoritative ranking of the country’s largest apartment owners, managers, developers and contractors. This year’s lists showed many of the industry’s heaviest hitters shoring up their positions and balancing their portfolios as both new and smaller industry players looked to aggressively capture market momentum and move up the ranks.

National Architecture Week is a public awareness campaign dedicated to elevating the public’s appreciation of design and to bring attention to the role architects play as a force for positive change in our communities. This year’s National Architecture Week will bring special focus on architects’ profound ability to impact communities through design and collaboration. In support of this theme the AIA will announce the recipients of the AIA/ALA Library Building Awards on April 12th.

The Federal Trade Commission is mailing 474 checks totaling more than $33,000 to consumers who lost money to a scheme that charged homeowners an up-front fee for mortgage relief services they promised but never provided.

A compliance officer with the Union City Community Development Agency (UCCDA) today admitted that he manipulated the contractor selection process for federally funded residential rehabilitation and sidewalk replacement projects, causing losses of $40,000 to $95,000, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced

Commercial property transaction volume is expected to decline over the next three years to $475 billion in 2018, according to a new three-year economic forecast from the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Center for Capital Markets and Real Estate. However, this volume forecast over the next three years is surpassed only by volumes in 2007 and 2015; and follows six years of commercial property volume growth

Mortgage applications increased 2.7 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending April 1, 2016