FHA May Be Next in Line for Huge Bailout: Delisle and Papagianis

-Bloomberg

The nationwide decline in house prices has created a vacuum in the U.S. mortgage market. Private financing for home loans has all but dried up and the U.S. government is now guaranteeing almost every new mortgage. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have received most of the media’s attention, but policy makers need to focus on the third leg of the housing- support stool: the Federal Housing Administration.

The FHA has some major accounting problems. Left unaddressed, they could spook the markets, lead the FHA to seek a federal cash infusion and further enrage taxpayers. These outcomes can be avoided -- but only if policy makers are more transparent about the risks involved in guaranteeing mortgages.

The FHA provides private lenders with a 100 percent guarantee against defaults on home mortgages that meet certain underwriting criteria, such as a minimum down payment and credit score. Traditionally, the FHA has served first-time homebuyers and low- to moderate-income families who pay an insurance premium for this loan guarantee.

As private-financing options have disappeared, the role of the FHA has grown. Its market share has increased to about 30 percent today from 3-4 percent in 2007. That’s because the agency is now practically the only game in town, accepting borrowers with down payments of as low as 3.5 percent. As the last few years have made clear, sizable down payments -- or “skin in the game” -- are the key to avoiding defaults in the near term and to achieving a stable housing market in the long term.

FHA’s Bottom Line

So how has the FHA fared financially in serving borrowers with low down payments? As the housing bubble burst in 2007, and the number of mortgage-related defaults started to climb, the FHA’s capital reserves declined to $3.5 billion from $22 billion.

This means that the FHA is on the verge of requiring a bailout to support its outstanding mortgage guarantees, which are projected to exceed $1 trillion in 2011.

The credit quality of FHA lending can be improved with better underwriting standards, such as requiring higher down payments and premiums. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to sound the alarm because flawed accounting measures show that new FHA loans will be profitable for the government. As a general rule, each year the government sets insurance premiums high enough to give the appearance that they will more than cover any losses from homeowners who default.

Budgetary Illusion

But no one should take comfort in the FHA’s projected profit. It’s purely a budgetary illusion.

According to the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990, federal-budget analysts must strip out any costs that the government incurs when it bears market risk in guaranteeing loans, including mortgages. Market risk is the likelihood that loan defaults will be higher during times of economic stress and that those defaults will be more costly. Excluding costs for market risk is particularly irresponsible at a time when foreclosure rates are elevated and doubts remain over whether home prices will fall further.

If the rate of loss on the FHA’s new guarantees ends up higher than expected, that will probably be because the overall economic recovery has stalled. In such a scenario, any entity guaranteeing mortgages -- be it the taxpayer-backed FHA or a private company -- will suffer bigger-than-expected losses.

Taxpayer Risks

Skeptics might dismiss warnings about the FHA’s ballooning market share. They would defend the government’s current accounting rules and argue that the growth in FHA loans (at the expense of private-sector lending) is a perfectly logical policy goal. In their view, the government is a more efficient provider of mortgages because it can borrow at lower interest rates than any private financial institution.

What’s missing from this analysis is that the government enjoys low borrowing costs only because it can shift market risk onto taxpayers.

Put another way, there is only one reason why investors lend to the government at lower rates than they charge private mortgage insurers, even if they all insure identical mortgages: The government can call on taxpayers to repay bondholders if FHA loans result in higher-than-expected defaults. Few taxpayers would choose to bear that risk free of charge.

Rewriting the Rules

Some lawmakers understand this and are working to change the government’s accounting rules to include market risk. At the request of Representative Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, the Congressional Budget Office recently took the official budget estimate for new FHA loans and added in the cost of market risk that taxpayers bear in guaranteeing the mortgages.

Under this more comprehensive methodology, the CBO determined that FHA loans would swing to a loss of $3.5 billion from a projected profit of $4.4 billion next year. In a 10-year budget window, this could mean a difference of $50 billion to $70 billion, depending on market conditions.

Accounting issues often seem arcane or even trivial. But the growth in FHA lending has turned a seemingly small problem into a large taxpayer vulnerability. The current accounting rules will also make it harder politically to shift some of the housing market back to the private sector. Congress should own up to the full costs and risks that taxpayers bear to guarantee mortgages.

The last time Congress delayed action in this area, taxpayers got stuck bailing out Fannie and Freddie -- at a cost of more than $160 billion and rising.

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Fed's Massive Stimulus Had Little Impact: Greenspan

-CNBC

The Federal Reserve's massive stimulus program had little impact on the U.S. economy besides weakening the dollar and helping U.S. exports, Federal Reserve Governor Alan Greenspan told CNBC Thursday.

In a blunt critique of his successor, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Greenspan said the $2 trillion in quantitative easing over the past two years had done little to loosen credit and boost the economy.

"There is no evidence that huge inflow of money into the system basically worked," Greenspan said in a live interview.

"It obviously had some effect on the exchange rate and the exchange rate was a critical issue in export expansion," he said. "Aside from that, I am ill-aware of anything that really worked. Not only QE2 but QE1."

Greenspan’s comments came as the Fed ended the second installment of its bond-buying program, known as QE2, after spending $600 billion. There were no hints of any more monetary easing—or QE3—to come.

Greenspan said he "would be surprised if there was a QE3"  because it would "continue erosion of the dollar."

The former Fed chairman himself has been widely criticized for the low-interest rate policy in the early and mid 2000s that many believe led to the 2008 credit crisis.

Bernanke, who took over for Greenspan in 2006, began implementing the quantitative easing program in 2009 in an attempt to unfreeze credit and prevent a collapse of the US financial system. The strategy has gotten mixed reviews so far.

On Greece, Greenspan said a default is likely and will  "affect the whole structure of profitability in the U.S." because of this country's large economic commitments to Europe, which holds Greek debt. Europe is also where "half the foreign [U.S.] affiliate earnings" are generated, he added.

"We can’t afford a significant drop in foreign affiliate earnings," Greenspan said.

Greenspan was also pessimistic about the U.S. deficit talks, saying he didn’t think Congress would reach an agreement on raising the debt ceiling by the Aug 2 deadline.
“We’re going to get up to Aug 2 and I think on that night, we are not going to have the issue solved,” he said.
If that happens, he said, the U.S. would have to continue paying debt holders or risk major damage in global financial markets. As a result, “we will default on everything else.”
He added: “At that point, I think we’ll all come to our senses.”

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Fed's new money policy: 'Wait and see'

-MSNBC

After pumping more than a trillion dollars into the financial system, forcing interest to near zero and buying back hundreds of billions of dollars of bad mortgage bonds, the Federal Reserve has adopted a new monetary policy.

Call it "wait and see."

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was on Capitol Hill Wednesday testifying on the central bank's latest strategies for getting the economy back on a stronger footing. The hearing comes a day after minutes of the Fed's latest Open Market Committee meeting in June showed the group divided over what to do next.

Some members want to consider resuming the pump-priming policy of buying up bonds. The majority, including Bernanke, argue that the recent "soft patch" in growth resulted from a temporary surge in oil prices and the supply bottlenecks from the Japanese earthquake.

"Once the temporary shocks that have been holding down economic activity pass, we expect to see again the effects of (recent Fed policy) reflected in stronger economic activity and job creation," Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee.

After a convincing pickup in growth last year, the economy slowed sharply in the first quarter and has been limping along since. First quarter gross domestic product edged up just 1.9 percent. The latest monthly data, especially the surprising collapse in job growth in May and June, have raised concerns that the recovery may be stalling out.

For now, central bankers don't see that happening. Bernanke said that while they've trimmed their growth forecasts, Fed forecasters believe growth will rise in the second half of the year to between 2.7 percent and 2.9 percent for the full year. The Fed forecast sees the economy gathering more steam next year, expanding at a rate of 3.3 to 3.7 percent.

So until the data from the second half starts rolling in, Bernanke and most of his colleagues think the best course is to do nothing.

"The Fed has thrown the kitchen sink at the markets with massive liquidity," said Paul Ballew, a former Federal Reserve economist and now chief economist at Nationwide. "So I expect in the second half they stay on the sidelines, they try get a read for the overall health of the economy and then make their decisions from there."

Though the Fed is on hold for now, Bernanke was quick to note that the central bank stands ready to take action if there are new shocks to the global economy or the financial system. Investors were cheered by just a mention that central bank might consider showering more money on the financial markets. Stocks and bonds rallied shortly after Bernanke's prepared testimony was released.

There are plenty of potential sources for shocks that could throw the economy off kilter. The ongoing political fracas over the federal budget, for one, has the bond market on edge. Congressional dithering over raising the debt ceiling has raised the threat of a default on U.S. Treasury debt.

The spreading debt crisis in Europe, for another, threatens to spark a banking panic that could put pressure on U.S. banks.

Bernanke said the U.S. would continue to pay interest on its debt even if Congress failed to extend the debt ceiling by Aug. 2, when the government is scheduled to exceed its borrowing authority.

"The assumption is that as long as possible, the Treasury would want to try to make payments on the principal and interest to the government debt, because failure to do that would certainly throw the financial system into enormous disarray and have major impacts on the global economy," Bernanke said.

Nevertheless, any of these shocks could produce the Fed's worst nightmare: a surge in market-driven interest rates that would severely test the central bank's ability to keep interest rates low. In his testimony, Bernanke reminded the committee of the importance of holding rates down.

"We know from many decades of experience with monetary policy that when the economy is operating below its potential, easier financial conditions tend to promote more rapid economic growth," he said.

But the Fed doesn't have many tools left to hold down rates if bond investors get spooked and demand higher interest payment to offset the risk of not getting their money back. Bernanke assured the committee that the Fed has "several options," and cited two. One would be to be more explicit about its plans to keep rates low for a very long time. The other would be to scale back the interest payments to banks that store cash in the Fed's accounts.

"A lot of the options he put on the table were effectively worthless," said Drew Matus, a senior economist at UBS Investment Research. "So I think Bernanke really is just hoping for the best."

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Treasury: Government presence in housing 'neither sustainable nor desirable'

-Housingwire

The housing market still remains a fragile element of the economy, Assistant Treasury Secretary Mary Miller said, outlining the government's myriad efforts to get the industry back on its feet.

Miller spoke at the Women in Housing Finance annual dinner Thursday night, highlighting the administration's programs to pull housing out of its multiyear malaise.

Included in the effort: A working group of members from the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Federal Housing Administration to consider changes to pricing and other standards at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the FHA, with the objective of reducing their market share over time.

"Treasury has created new programs to better address current challenges, like the $7.6 billion Hardest Hit Fund, which allows state housing finance agencies in our nation’s hardest hit housing markets to design locally targeted foreclosure prevention programs," Miller said.

She oversees federal borrowing at the Treasury, which includes managing the U.S. national debt. Miller also advises Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the effect of federal policy and regulation on financial markets, including the administration’s plan for housing finance reform.

More than 4.5 million mortgage modifications were started between April 2009 and April 2011, including more than 1.5 million trial modification starts through the administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program.

Still, home prices have dropped more than 30% from their 2006 peak, housing starts are one-third the rate prior to 2005 and 3.5 million existing homes are on the market with another 3.8 million units in the shadow inventory. Foreclosures remain high and one in four homeowners is underwater, owing more than their homes are worth.

More recently, Treasury issued a program directive for the largest mortgage servicers participating in the Making Home Affordable Program that requires them to assign homeowners applying for assistance a single point of contact to improve servicer accountability and efficiency. FHFA has helped, directing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to align servicing guidelines.

"But the current government presence in the market — with over 90% of new mortgages backed by the government — is neither sustainable nor desirable for the long term," Miller said. "We also recognize the necessary balance that exists between moving swiftly to reduce the government’s footprint in the market and ensuring that any actions do not disrupt the still fragile housing market."

Treasury is also taking steps to gradually wind down its agency-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities portfolio acquired during the financial crisis. The Treasury held nearly $200 billion MBS at one point, and began shedding these assets in March.

Miller suggested reform of Fannie and Freddie may not take as long as the five to 10 years that others have suggested, noting she hopes to get legislation passed within two years.

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U.S. Government Needs to Change Focus

-Bank Foreclosures Sale

People across the country continue to attribute the number of current foreclosures to the banks allowing individuals to purchase homes on sub-par income as was common before the heightened government regulations and mass number of foreclosures. Although this may have been part of the reason the foreclosure inventory drastically increased over the last few years, the current foreclosures are more than likely due to high unemployment.

Our nation’s government continues to focus on creating programs to assist individuals unable to pay their delinquent mortgages in an effort to combat foreclosure. Although these initiatives are great and do provide relief for some individuals they are not sufficient to keep people in their homes. Why?

Most foreclosure relief programs only delay the foreclosure process as they provide up to three months of assistance. However, most people are unemployed for around nine months as opposed to three. In these situations, foreclosure is only prolonged as opposed to solved.

What does all of this mean? The government needs to keep the programs that are being offered to provide foreclosure relief; however, there has to be national attention, time, and effort devoted to decreasing the unemployment rate by increasing the number of jobs. The unemployment rate must decline before the foreclosure inventory subsides.

For those still facing foreclosure, there are various ways to help avoid foreclosure through everything from loan modification to short sales. The first step in avoiding foreclosure is working with your lender to amend your loan and possibly decrease your monthly payment to something more manageable. If you cannot reach a deal with your lending company, you may wish to consider a short sale or a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure. There are also several other methods that may help you avoid foreclosure.

On the other hand, for those that do have stable jobs, the current real estate market provides exceptional opportunities for investing in low priced homes with all-time low interest rates. The current inventory of foreclosures includes everything from duplexes to multi-family homes.

In conclusion, the United States government should maintain the current programs to provide foreclosure relief while also turning their attention to addressing the nation’s unemployment problems that in turn affect the real estate market.

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