SAN DIEGO—FHA insurance remains critical for construction and rehabilitation of much-needed affordable and workforce housing. At Monday's MBA CREF/Multifamily Housing Convention and Expo 2019, panelists touched on that subject and briefly talked about HUD's perspective on the housing crisis and collaborative efforts over the past year to tackle issues affecting FHA programs.
When moderator Stephanie McFadden, managing director of CBRE, asked about the 35 day hiatus, panelists simply said “Thank you for your support and patience.”
Panelist C. Lamar Seats, deputy assistant secretary of office of multifamily housing programs of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said they are still dealing with a backlog but are “moving forward.”
He talked a bit about the new underwriting model and how the primary goal this year is to “go out, visit and work with the field staff directly and go through how they make decisions, understand their assessment of risk and more to see if they can make improvements over time. Same goes with the closing process,” he said.
Seats explained that when talking with a lot of the audience members at MBA, the reaction he has seen was that the HUD staff has been “proactive and engaged.”
The tasks and activities HUD was able to do during the shutdown were very limited, Seats added. “During the shutdown, when there were tasks that we needed to undertake, we approached for permission to do them. We also talked about the possibility of another shut down in the future and revised a contingency plan that has gone through clearance. Whenever the next shutdown would occur, we will be in a better spot with no lingering impacts… I don't think we have a huge backlog to catch up on any longer. People are clearing it up quickly and doing business as usual.”
Lastly, Paul J. Weissman, senior managing director and head of originations and affordable housing finance at Hunt Real Estate Capital, gave a quick originations overview. “We are seeing more activity in new construction, which makes a lot of sense given the state of the market,” he said. “Many commercial banks have pulled back a bit but I think that the data looks pretty good about absorption of those deliveries. You have a lot of markets seems hefty deliveries. There is room for additional rooms to come online.”
Check back with GlobeSt.com for more coverage from MBA's CREF/Multifamily Housing Convention and Expo 2019.
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