FHA Chief Pulls No Punches on Housing While in Denver
David Stevens, Commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration and Assistant Secretary for HUD, told about 200 lenders and other housing officials in Denver that the current real estate environment is very similar to what it was like in 1934, when the FHA was born to help Americans get home loans during the Great Depression.
Stevens, a University of Colorado graduate, who is considered the first FHA commissioner with real-life mortgage lending experience, noted that “private capital has evaporated today,” just like it did during the Great Depression.
“It’s A Wonderful Life” is not so wonderful,” Stevens said, alluding to the 1946 Jimmy Stewart movie about a local mortgage lender, whose community depended on him for their home loans.
“You may not like everything I do,” he told the crowd at one point during the Town Hall-style meeting, largely underwritten by American Southwest Mortgage Corp. The meeting also included industry panels, where a number of people called for loosening tight underwriting limits, saying that things such as stated-income loans are not inherently evil, and must be returned to the market to allow qualified, higher-income people to get loans for homes.
But Stevens assured the group that everything he does is not based on whimsy, but is the product of the analysis of thousands of points of data. He noted he has hired five Phd’s to analyze economic and housing data and run computer-simulation models on various scenarios. He said steps he is taking, as well as those by the Obama Administration, are helping to get the housing market back on track.
Video Link: FHA Commissioner David Stevens speaks at DU
Video Link: FHA Commissioner David Stevens Hopeful on Housing Recovery
Read more of the story at InsideRealEstateNews.com.
