By Austin Weinstein
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s chief regulator is calling on Congress to pass housing-finance reform legislation that sets a path to return the companies to private hands.
The president of the Appraisal Institute, the nation’s largest professional association of real estate appraisers, encouraged Congress to act on valuation topics during yesterday’s hearing on Capitol Hill.
Stephen S. Wagner, MAI, SRA, AI-GRS, told the House Financial Services Committee’s Housing, Community Development and Insurance Subcommittee that the Appraisal Institute supports passage of H.R. 2852, which would allow licensed appraisers to perform appraisals for Federal Housing Administration loans.
By Diane Thompson
The Bureau is publishing its Spring 2019 Agenda as part of the Spring 2019 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, which is coordinated by the Office of Management and Budget. As an independent regulatory agency, the Bureau voluntarily participates in the Unified Agenda. The agenda lists the regulatory matters that the Bureau reasonably anticipates having under consideration during the period from May 1, 2019, to April 30, 2020, as described further below
The Appraisal Institute on Feb. 4 was one of six organizations signing a comment letter that "strongly opposed" a proposal from the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to raise the residential appraisal threshold from $250,000 to $400,000.
The Small Business Administration issued revised guidance March 26 stating that an appraisal may be needed to evaluate the creditworthiness of commercial real estate loans below $500,000. New legislation that aligned SBA regulations with those from the federal bank regulatory agencies eliminated the appraisal requirement for commercial loans below the half-million-dollar threshold.
By Kelsey Ramirez
The Federal Housing Finance Agency revealed it will no longer defend its own structure, calling itself unconstitutional.
By Caroline Basile
The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced late Friday that it will resume selling and renewing flood insurance policies, rescinding its initial ruling that the National Flood Insurance Program cannot be renewed amid the ongoing government shutdown.
The Appraisal Institute and 15 other organizations submitted a letter Dec. 21 to the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency requesting that they hold a public meeting as part of the process to determine whether to increase the residential appraisal threshold from $250,000 to $400,000.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) today announced the maximum conforming loan limits for mortgages to be acquired by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2019. In most of the U.S., the 2019 maximum conforming loan limit for one-unit properties will be $484,350, an increase from $453,100 in 2018.
Baseline limit
The Appraisal Institute and the Land Trust Alliance co-signed a letter Nov. 29 urging congressional leaders to advance the Charitable Conservation Easement Program Integrity Act, which would help maintain the integrity of conservation easement donations by closing an apparent loophole related to abusive syndicated tax shelters.
As you're aware by now, AI joined 17 other groups to submit public comments opposing NCUA's proposal to quadruple – from $250,000 to $1 million – the appraisal threshold for non-residential real estate loans. Our own state chapter (NCAI) has submitted public comments as well. Click the button below to read them.
By Erika Morphy
With a Republican-controlled Senate and a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, no significant commercial real estate-related legislation is expected to pass, according to a GlobeSt.com analysis reported Nov. 7. Among the issues expected to stall: additional deregulation, further loosening of Dodd-Frank and more tax changes.
The Federal Reserve issued its highly anticipated proposed framework for applying enhanced prudential standards to banking firms with $100 billion or more in assets, as required by S. 2155, the regulatory reform law.
The Fed proposed to establish four categories of standards that seek to reflect the risks of firms in the group. The agency outlined the risk-based indicators it would use to determine the applicability of standards, including size, cross-jurisdictional activity, weighted short-term wholesale funding, nonbank assets and off-balance sheet exposure. In addition, the Fed released a second joint proposal with the OCC and FDIC that would tailor requirements under the regulatory capital rule, the Liquidity Coverage Ratio and the proposed Net Stable Funding Ratio rule for banks in each group. The proposal does not apply to foreign banking organizations or intermediate holding companies of foreign banking organizations, but the Fed signaled it will issue a separate proposal in the weeks ahead on how it will supervise these institutions.
By Michael Tucker
The North American Free Trade Agreement's likely replacement, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, should increase U.S. commercial property market demand by decreasing uncertainty about trade, said CBRE, Los Angeles.
