NCST’s Policy Team, based in our Washington, DC office, advocates for policies that support thriving neighborhoods, fight blight, and enable sustainable homeownership. We work closely with a network of advocates that help consumers, renters and homeowners, and we also serve as one of the few voices for vacant properties and the mission-focused developers working to return these properties to productive use. We regularly engage with our diverse network of community buyers, our sellers, and others working in the field to develop policy initiatives that respond to real and ever-evolving local needs.
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Policy Corner: A Critical Moment for Struggling Homeowners
By David Sanchez, Director of Research & Development As we approach seven months since the COVID national emergency was declared, the virus’ effect on housing and mortgage markets is becoming clearer. The lending industry is busy processing robust home purchase and mortgage refinance volumes, and nationally home…
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Insights on the Final Community Reinvestment Act Rule from OCC
Since 1977, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) has driven billions of dollars in bank lending and investment in affordable housing, small business and other community amenities to low and moderate income neighborhoods. CRA requires banks “to help meet the credit needs of the entire community”. It is…
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Looking beyond the CARES Act
By David Sanchez, Director of Research & Development As the federal government’s response to COVID-19 has been rapidly evolving, NCST has been front and center reminding policy makers of the importance of NCST Community Buyers and the communities they serve. NCST has been advocating for the protections that…
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Regulatory News
(October 2019) Comments due October 18th on HUD rule eliminating the use of “disparate impact” analysis to prove illegal discrimination under the Fair Housing Act The Department of Housing and Urban Development has proposed a new rule that will make it harder to win discrimination cases for…
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Implications of GSE Patch Expiration
(September 2019) This summer, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) announcing that it plans to let the temporary Qualified Mortgage provision for loans eligible for purchase or guarantee by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – otherwise known as the…
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U.S. House of Representatives Introduces Bill For Single Family Rehab Tax Credit
(July 2019) NCST is excited to announce that a single family tax credit bill has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Representative Brian Higgins (D-NY) and Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) – the Neighborhood Homes Investment Act (H.R. 3316)! As many are aware, we have…
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HUD Solicits Input on Note Sales
(June 2019) Recently, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) related to its Distressed Asset Sale Program (DASP), also known as the Single Family Loan Sales program. In the DASP program, FHA bundles pools of nonperforming FHA-insured mortgage loans together and…
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New Opportunities for Input on Opportunity Zones
(May 2019) Washington, DC is currently living out the old adage of “when it rains, it pours” – both in its spring weather patterns and its regulatory activity. Six months after the last release of proposed Opportunity Zones regulations, the federal government has released multiple Opportunity Zones-related…
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Policy Shorts
(April 2019) The month of March was a busy one for housing policy news! Rather than limit ourselves to just one topic, we would like to share some brief thoughts on some of the updates that most impact our work and the work of our Community Buyers:…
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Ten Questions that Congress Could Ask about Single Family Rentals
(March 2019) March is a busy month for consumer and financial issues oversight, with seven separate hearings scheduled by the House Financial Services Committee on topics ranging from Wells Fargo’s abuses to disaster recovery funding. Chairwoman Waters previewed these priority areas in her first policy speech back…
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