FHA: Reforms to Protect Taxpayers and Borrowers

Sarah Rosen Wartell and Mark A. Willis

Housing Policy Debate, 2014, vol. 24, issue 3, 651-662

Abstract: The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has historically played a crucial role in supporting the housing market. The most recent financial and housing market crises would have been far worse if the FHA had not stepped in to provide mortgage credit. Providing that credit, however, required FHA to take on elevated levels of risk. FHA supports the housing market and homeownership in three ways. First, FHA helps to ensure that all those who can sustain homeownership have access to reasonably priced long-term, fixed-rate mortgages. Second, FHA helps to prevent the collapse of local, regional, or national housing markets when the private sector pulls back from offering mortgages. Third, FHA can promote innovation by piloting new products and underwriting and servicing practices. As the country looks to reform the housing finance system, this recent experience makes clear how important it is to both retain FHA and strengthen its ability to assess and manage risk. Addressing these issues immediately would help to further reduce risks to the Fund, protecting taxpayers and borrowers while allowing FHA to continue to serve its core missions.

Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/10511482.2013.866151 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:houspd:v:24:y:2014:i:3:p:651-662

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RHPD20

DOI: 10.1080/10511482.2013.866151

Access Statistics for this article

Housing Policy Debate is currently edited by Tom Sanchez, Susanne Viscarra and Derek Hyra

More articles in Housing Policy Debate from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().