Housing Policy Council Details

The Housing Policy Council, formed in 2003 as a special-interest non-profit group, spearheads issues affecting the mortgage and housing-related businesses. This council urges its members to fund or subsidize high-risk home loans, seeking to reduce the financial challenges and barriers to entry-level financing that low-income-households face.

As an offshoot of the Financial Services Roundtable, the HPC's interest is a competitive marketplace, embracing transparency, consistency, and accountability, while advocating for a sound system where all participants access equitable regulatory treatment. This association lobbies for lending practices on whose reliance the community can create sustainable homeownership which leads to long-term wealth.

By the induction of several members from significant finance houses, the roundtable and HPC create impressions around finding solutions to irreconcilable repayment plans and flawed underwriting. Here are a few situations where the Housing Policy Council would get involved:

  • Government-sponsored enterprise reform
  • Bank modernization
  • The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act
  • Low-income housing tax credit
  • Data reporting
  • Mortgage revenue bonds
  • Mortgage interest deductions

Example of the Housing Policy Council

To bring outreach to affected communities, the HPC offers resources for mortgage counseling, money management, unemployment, and sponsored events around the nation. This council's membership includes the country's leading originators, insurers, mortgage servicers, and settlement or data service providers.

These unified members work to create a coordinated plant that assists communities, government partners, and homeowners, to repair the derelict mortgage market. The HPC, through the Hope Now Alliance, fought the post-2007 subprime mortgage foreclosures by offering modified loans, financial counseling, and loan forgiveness.

Beyond its policy prescriptions, the council is also committed to partnering with housing advocates, civil rights groups, and finance agencies to improve and sustain homeownership opportunities. These efforts target ethnic, racial, or low-income communities, groups, and households that often come last in homeownership.

Significance of the Housing Policy Council

Soon after the initial wave of the largest batch of foreclosures passed, the Housing Policy Council (HPC) began advocating for more ethical lender conduct and higher standards for mortgage lending. Through their efforts, the mortgage process had become more straightforward and the housing market less risky for borrowers and lenders.

The HPC uses its website as a nationally promoted vehicle with the prevention of foreclosure information, free phone counseling, and a 24-hour toll-free phone line. This council performs other duties together with partnerships from the Homeownership Preservation Foundation, among others.

By bolstering targeted homeownership assistances and stimulating the preservation and production of affordable rental housing, the HPC helps to mitigate the nationwide housing supply shortage. This trade association lobbies the government's guarantee for housing finance reforms, assisting to establish legislation that expands the supply of affordable housing for homebuyers and lower-income renters.

Types of Housing Policy Council

The Housing Policy Council engenders reverse foreclosures with workouts or loan modifications. By modifying the repayment, a workout updates a defaulting mortgage borrower with current payments while maintaining the mortgage’s underlying terms.

A loan modification touches on the terms of the mortgage, making them more serviceable for the homeowner facing foreclosure. Alongside educational services, addressing barriers, and improving access to services like homeownership counseling, the HPC assists low and moderate-income families to create a financial performance that sustains homeownership.

Stakeholders get prompted to use more lenient criteria for underwriting, as a way to compensate for the industry's long-term growth. The Housing Policy Council addresses subsidized solutions for households in need, with programs that include dedicated accounts, savings plans, and down-payment assistance grants.

History of the Housing Policy Council

In 1993, the Financial Services Roundtable (then Bankers Roundtable) formed as a result of a merger between the Association of Registered Bank Holding Companies and the Association of Reserve City Bankers. Rebranded FSR in 2000, the group adopted a broad banking industry focus, which includes policies on mortgage lending and the housing industry.

Following the overwhelming numbers of home foreclosures as a result of the 2007 subprime mortgage meltdown, the HPC played an essential role. The HPC consists of members from the secondary mortgage market, the US government, homeownership counseling organizations, and MBS or mortgage-backed securities investors.

To counter the snowball effect of defaulted mortgages after the 2008 crash, the US department of housing and urban development, alongside the US Department of Treasury encouraged the Hope Now Alliance to help struggling homeowners avert foreclosure. After free financial counseling, the Alliance modifies mortgage loans through major connections with banking institutions, seeing as it rose from the Financial Services Roundtable and the HPC.