Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chair Jelena McWilliams announced on December 31 that she would resign in February. She is expected to be replaced by FDIC board member Martin Gruenberg. 

McWilliams, who was appointed in 2018, had been locked in a dispute with the three other FDIC board members over changes to the agency’s bank merger policy. That dispute escalated in early December when Gruenberg, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra, and Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael J. Hsu, voted to request comments on changes to FDIC’s bank merger process without McWilliams support. McWilliams alleged in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that her colleagues were engaged in a “hostile takeover” of the agency. Observers speculated that though it was unclear whether the board’s vote was legal, it constituted a vote of no confidence and signaled to McWilliams that she could not continue to lead the agency productively.

However, some warned that the fight had damaged the agency's independence from partisan politics, potentially compromising its ability to act as a steady hand in financial markets going forward. NHC President and CEO David Dworkin told the American Banker that “at some point we’re going to have to ask ourselves: How tied to the political pendulum do we want our regulatory agencies to be, particularly when it swings back hard and fast?”

On Wednesday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a new report on response deficiencies from the "Big Three" credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. The Big Three reported relief in response to less than 2% of consumer complaints, a massive reduction from 2019's reported 25%. Consumers reporting on potential errors in their credit files often included claims of identity theft and inaccuracies of medical debt. 

On Wednesday, FHFA announced new upfront fees in the Enterprise Pricing Framework for second home and high balance home loans sold to the Enterprises. The new framework, which comes into effect on April 1, 2022, will increase upfront fees for high balance loans between 0.25%-0.75% and 1.125%-3.875% for second home loans, depending on loan-to-value ratio. Per FHFA, high balance loans are determined in certain designated areas in which housing prices fall above the baseline conforming loan limit. The move is intended to strengthen the Enterprises' regulatory capital position over time and provide more equitable and sustainable access to homeownership for low- and moderate-income homebuyers.

Loans within affordable programs, including HomeReady, Home Possible, HFA Preferred and HFA Advantage, are excluded from the fees. Loans to first-time homebuyers in high-cost areas who have incomes at or below 100% AMI are also exempt from the high balance upfront fees. The change was met with strong opposition from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), who argued that increasing the cost of second homes could dampen demand for them even as many families look for more space during the pandemic. But the move garnered broader support from the affordable housing industry, which praised FHFA's decision to focus on homes that serve as primary residences.

Freddie Mac announced Monday that it would expand its Single-Family Green Bond program to cover newly constructed properties that rely on renewable energy or are especially energy-efficient. The move increases the number of mortgages eligible for the program, which was previously limited to refinances that funded homeowners' installation of solar panels on their properties. 

Freddie Mac has increased its emphasis on green mortgages in recent years, driven in part by its obligations under the Duty to Serve program. On December 27, Freddie Mac released a white paper touting the impact of its multifamily Green Up program, which funds green improvements for workforce housing. Freddie Mac first created the Green Bond program in 2019 to drive more capital into the Green Up program. Monday's announcement was the latest in several expansions Freddie Mac has made to eligibility for the program.

On January 11 at 10 a.m., the committee will hold a hearing on Biden’s nomination of Jerome Powell to a second term as chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. On January 13, also at 10 a.m., the committee will hold a hearing on Biden’s nomination of Lael Brainard as vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and Sandra Thompson as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

Both hearings will be live-streamed on the committee’s website.

In December, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced two funding awards: over $18 million for housing assistance for veterans and a $9 million loan guarantee for the City of Cleveland to develop a 200-unit mixed-use property. The $18 million award will go to HUD's Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing as vouchers across 33 states through 103 Public Housing Agencies (PHAs) and aim to provide housing to veterans currently experiencing homelessness. The $9 million loan to Cleveland came through the Section 108 Loan Guarantee Program, providing Community Development Block Grant recipients with low-cost financing for community development. 

HUD also announced several rounds of disaster assistance for Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kentucky, and the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in response to severe storms and wildfires. The relief includes providing immediate foreclosure relief, offering mortgage insurance and home rehabilitation, and ensuring HUD-approved counseling agencies are available, among other strategies. 

The number of deeds-in-lieu and short sales decreased along with foreclosures during the pandemic, FHFA reported in its Foreclosure Prevention and Refinance Report for the third quarter of 2021. Home forfeitures fell to lows not seen at least since before the Great Recession, demonstrating the success of pandemic-era assistance to homeowners in avoiding even widespread “soft exits” to homeownership.

An article in Slate covers the burgeoning movement pushing to reverse widespread requirements that apartment buildings have two staircases, which supporters say is unnecessary and fuels house price inflation. Though the purported reason for such requirements is fire safety, architect Michael Eliason says that there is no evidence a second staircase reduces risk to residents and that they are unheard of across much of Europe and Asia. Instead of increasing fire safety, he says, second staircase requirements force developers to reduce the size of units and pass over unconventional lots, contributing to housing shortages.

A Freddie Mac study finds that high opportunity areas – neighborhoods with good access to transit, jobs, education, and other amenities that increase social mobility – are often inhospitable to middle-income renters due to stringent zoning requirements. The study finds that high-opportunity areas are disproportionately zoned for low-density, single-family housing. Just 10.7% of rental units available in high opportunity areas are affordable to families making less than 60% of area median income.

CityLab reports that 97.5% of apartments are occupied in the United States, the highest figure on record and a testament to the severity of the nationwide housing shortage. The past year's rise in occupancy rates did not display the usual seasonal variation of rising in the winter and falling in the summer, which CityLab attributes to the strange housing market dynamics of the pandemic. 

A white paper from House Canary finds that automated home appraisal technology is better at producing accurate and bias-free home appraisals than typical appraisal methods. According to the white paper, House Canary's automated valuation model had no evidence of racial bias as measured by the difference between the appraised value and sale price for each racial group. 

ULI: 2022 ULI Hines Student Competition Challenge brief launch, 11 a.m. – noon ET

NLIHC: National call on universal, stable, affordable housing, 2:30 – 3:30 p.m. ET

NLIHC: Tenant talk live for resident leaders, 6 – 7 p.m. ET

Enterprise: Resilience training for affordable housing property managers, 10 – 11:30 a.m. ET

ULI: Equitable development, noon – 2 p.m. ET

HUD: Section 3 Final Rule HCD and PHA office hours, 1:30 – 3 p.m. ET

HUD: Working with CDBG-CV subrecipients to expand programs, 2 – 3 p.m. ET

ULI: Global sustainability outlook for 2022, 1 – 2 p.m. ET

HUD: PIT office hours, 1:30 – 3 p.m. ET

ULI: 2022 ULI Hines Student Competition office hours, noon – 1 p.m. ET

WHF: CFPB RFI & its related upheaval, noon – 1 p.m. ET

HUD: The CDBG-CV subrecipient agreement as a management tool, 2 – 3 p.m. ET