FHA Single-Family Insurance Program: Performing a Needed Role in the Housing Finance Market. Executive Summary.

摘要

The paper is organized into four sections and an appendix. The first section provides a historical overview of FHAs role in stabilizing housing markets, setting market standards, providing information, and addressing market failures such as credit rationing. The second section shows how this role provides improved opportunities for low-wealth (often newly formed) households to access affordable, sustainable homeownership. The third section describes some significant challenges that FHA has faced over the years and the steps it has taken to meet these challenges. Throughout the current crisis, FHA has borrowed from lessons it learned in the past. The fourth section examines FHAs response to the current housing crisis: FHA has stabilized declining markets by maintaining access to federally guaranteed mortgage credit in the face of a severe curtailment of private capital in the market, and it has assisted distressed homeowners to keep their homes. Finally, the appendix reviews key questions and policies that will inform the future role of FHA, including questions related to the costs and benefits of FHAs countercyclical role, pending regulatory and institutional reforms that could affect underwriting standards in the conventional mortgage market.