NCSHA Blog

The Senate Finance Committee yesterday considered in a closed-door members-only meeting options for reforming the tax code in the area of economic and community development, including housing.

A special report released by Moody’s on May 10 finds that participating in Fannie Mae’s HFA Preferred Risk Sharing program could benefit HFAs’ credit by allowing them to offer a new product to borrowers and increase their presence in the affordable housing market. The report also warns that HFAs participating in the program may face increased costs due to unexpected early defaults and also from setting up the secondary financing infrastructure necessitated by the program, but says that HFAs should be able to mitigate these risks.

The Housing Assistance Council (HAC) recently reported in their April Rural Research Note that rental housing options in rural areas are often lacking, and affordability constraints make finding affordable rental housing difficult for many low-income rural Americans. The report draws on research done for HAC’s decennial Taking Stock report, which was last published in December of 2012.

Fannie Mae’s partnership with state housing finance agencies (HFAs) demonstrates how our cooperative efforts continue to open doors in the affordable housing market, despite the difficult challenges that have arisen in housing finance over the past several years.

NCSHA submitted testimony on HUD’s housing and USDA’s Rural Housing Service (RHS) programs in response to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees’ invitation to submit outside witness testimony on FY 2014 appropriations.

If current corporate tax reform efforts are successful, the resulting changes to the tax code will affect the amount of equity that can be raised from the low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC), according to a report, “Affordable Rental Housing After Tax Reform: Calculating Corporate Tax Reform's Possible Effects on Equity Raised from Low-Income Housing Tax Credits.”

The Departments of HUD and Justice (DOJ), which are jointly responsible for enforcing the Fair Housing Act, have released joint guidance regarding the “persons, entities, and types of housing and related facilities” that are subject to the accessible design and construction requirements of the Fair Housing Act.

On May 3, Moody’s released the sixth edition of its Public Finance Housing Rating Methodology and Research Handbook. This handbook provides a description of what factors Moody’s considers when determining ratings for state HFA and other public financing housing programs. Moody’s notes that this is the first time this handbook has been published only in electronic form, which Moody’s hopes will allow it to be updated more regularly.