Sustainability and Servicing: Making Homeownership Happen

As communities across the nation continue to grapple with rising home prices and high interest rates, many families believe that affordable homeownership is more difficult to achieve than ever before. In part two of our “Making Homeownership Happen” webinar miniseries, panelists will examine best practices and successful strategies for assisting struggling homeowners through mortgage servicing and loan sustainability. Topics will include foreclosure mitigation, lessons learned from pandemic programs, and innovative tools to help borrowers facing financial adversity to stay in their homes and maintain an overall healthy mortgage market across the nation.

This is the eleventh webinar in our webinar series sponsored by NeighborWorks® America.

Panelists:

Janneke Ratcliffe is vice president for housing finance policy and leads the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute. Over a career that spans industry, the nonprofit sector, academic research, and the federal government, her work focuses on increasing access to financial systems that foster economic security and prosperity.

Ratcliffe came to Urban from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where she served as assistant director, leading its Office of Financial Education. Previously, she was the executive director of the University of North Carolina Center for Community Capital, leading “transformative research on how mortgage markets and financial services can better promote financial security and economic opportunity.” Ratcliffe has also served at GE Capital Mortgage, the Center for American Progress, and Self-Help, where she was instrumental in high-impact programs in affordable and Community Reinvestment Act mortgages and community development finance. Ratcliffe serves on the National Advisory Council of the National Housing Council (for a three-year term beginning 2024) and on the Consumer Affairs Advisory Council of the Mortgage Bankers Association. She is a member of Fannie Mae’s Affordable Housing Advisory Council for 2024–25 and of the National Community Stabilization Trust Board of Managers. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she studied economics and French.

Karen Woods has been with NHS Chicago since 2009 and is responsible for leading homeownership initiatives and partnerships that advance the mission of the organization. In her previous role as Director of Homeownership Services for NHS, she led a team of housing counseling professionals in the delivery of services that support the creation of new homebuyers and sustainable homeownership opportunities. She has over 25 years of experience working in affordable housing, community investment and real estate development. Prior to joining NHS, she worked for General Growth Properties in its Urban Retail Development Group tasked with bringing retail amenities to underserved communities across the country. Throughout her career, she has been committed to advancing affordable housing.  Karen holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Business Administration in marketing and real estate finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Notre Dame.

Tonya Tyler is the Vice President (VP) of Operations for the National Initiatives Division at NeighborWorks.  Tonya is a Housing and Community Development leader with over 25 years of experience in non-profit management, operational strategies and support, thought leadership, strategic planning and national program development and implementation. During her sixteen-year tenure at NeighborWorks, she has designed, administered and implemented housing crisis relief grant programs, that have served more than 2 million households across the country facing housing crisis.  Before NeighborWorks, she spent 15 years responsible for Housing and Community Development programs at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC) in Columbus, Ohio.

Russ Fowlie oversees the loan administration division of Guild Mortgage and is responsible for enhancing overall customer experience. He also manages operations from customer service through default loan management and leads Guild’s investor reporting relationships with the GSEs.

Russ has 25 years of mortgage banking and servicing experience leading operations as well as launching and implementing successful business transformation projects in compliance with federal regulations.

Russ joined Guild in 2021 from JP Morgan Chase where he was the executive director of home lending, finance and compliance. He has extensive servicing and capital market experience earned through senior management and executive roles at GMAC, Ally Financial and Flagstar Bank. He graduated from Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland with a bachelor’s degree in business studies in 1991.

Robert Allen has served Fannie Mae for 15 years and was a primary market participant for 5 years prior to joining Fannie Mae.  His career has spanned all aspects of the post origination loan lifecycle and most recently at Fannie Mae he has managed teams responsible for credit policy interpretation, risk escalation, and solutioning problems identified within the business.     Robert is a proud father and husband, who enjoys being outside with the family and throwing a frisbee for his dog Sage.