Section 203 of the National Housing Act of 1934 created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to provide federally backed insurance of home mortgages against the risk of default. FHA insurance typically serves borrowers with higher perceived credit risk, including first-time homebuyers and minority borrowers. FHA is also restricted to loan amounts less than a maximum limit. Historically, these loan limits have tended to not keep pace with house price appreciation, further focusing FHA insurance on a narrowing segment of the mortgage market. But in response to the collapse of house prices and rising foreclosures, Congress enacted legislation in 2008 that drastically increased the maximum loan amount eligible for FHA insurance. Although subsequently extended, the higher loan limits expired at the end of 2013. The changes in loan limits create a natural experiment to measure the effect of the availability of FHA mortgage insurance on the mortgage market. The exogenous variation in FHA eligibility provides an improvement over previous research on the substitution between FHA and conventional (i.e., not insured by the Veterans Administration, Department of Agriculture, or FHA) mortgage lending.

Evidence indicates that housing counseling can be an effective intervention in helping distressed homeowners avoid foreclosure. This paper briefly summarizes recent research evidence on the role of housing counseling to improve housing outcomes for homebuyers, homeowners, and renters. PD&R has published an updated version of this paper titled Housing Counseling Works: 2023 Update.

Congress and many researchers and practitioners in the field of housing counseling have asked whether pre-purchase homeownership counseling for higher risk borrowers leads to better borrower outcomes and reduced lender risk relative to no counseling. Prior research has suggested there are benefits of pre-purchase homeownership counseling, but those benefits have been questioned for over 20 years by concerns that those who choose counseling may be different than those that who do not choose to get counseling (selection bias). HUD designed The First-Time Homebuyer Education and Counseling Demonstration as a rigorous, large-scale, randomized experiment to definitively answer the question about the relative efficacy of homebuyer education and counseling on higher risk borrowers. This Early Insights report demonstrates that HUD has successfully implemented the first large-scale national experiment of homebuyer education and counseling that promises to become a foundational source of evidence for policymakers, lenders, and housing counseling practitioners and advocates regarding the impacts of homebuyer education and counseling. Click here for the HUD First-Time Homebuyer Study

On May 25, 2016, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, in partnership with HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research, the NYU Furman Center and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, hosted the Research Symposium on Gentrification and Neighborhood Change. This summary report highlights important research findings, policy implications, and examples of local efforts to promote equitable outcomes for gentrifying neighborhoods that were discussed at the symposium.

This Guidebook, co-authored with the Wisconsin HOPE Lab, reviews and explains strategies that institutions of higher education may consider to support their students with housing insecurity and other living costs, as well as examples of these strategies’ implementation. In the introduction, the Guidebook contextualizes these strategies with reference to evidence on student living costs, most of which has been discussed in prior PD&R publications. With high rates of college enrollment despite stagnant or declining family incomes and increasing college costs, today many college students are struggling to make ends meets and succeed in school. Key strategies include, for example, engaging in extensive, approach outreach for students who may benefit from support; partnering with local agencies and organizations such as Continuums of Care; and connecting students with benefits. The Guidebook is sourced from interviews, suggestions from stakeholders including other federal agencies, and existing research.

The Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) was established under the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2012 to provide public housing authorities (PHAs) with new options for preserving public housing by converting their public housing projects to HUD’s project-based Section 8 assisted housing platform. The primary intent is for PHAs to use long-term project-based Section 8 contracts to leverage external capital for preserving their low-income housing assets while protecting existing residents. In authorizing RAD, Congress added a requirement that HUD report on the program’s impact on (1) the preservation and improvement of former public housing units, (2) the amount of external capital leveraged as a result of RAD conversion, and (3) the effect of conversion on residents. This report is the first step in that evaluation process. This report is part of the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) evaluation. Reports in this series include –

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and public housing authorities (PHAs) have long struggled to maintain the country’s 1.1 million public housing units. In 2010, a study prepared for HUD estimated the backlog of public housing capital needs to be approximately $26 billion, with each subsequent year accruing an additional $3.4 billion in unmet capital needs. Congress authorized the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) in 2012 to test a new way of meeting this substantial funding challenge. RAD authorizes PHAs to convert public housing properties to project-based Section 8 contracts, which is expected to provide a more stable, long-term funding stream and to make it easier for PHAs to leverage additional funding sources. New research released by HUD examines how the RAD program has performed to date. The interim report of the RAD evaluation (released September 2016) is the first independent assessment of RAD and completes the first phase of the evaluation mandated by Congress in its authorization of RAD. The report provides evidence that the program is on track to accomplish its primary goal of attracting substantial new capital and stabilizing the physical and financial condition of federally assisted housing properties.This report is part of the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) evaluation. Reports in this series include –

In preparation for Habitat III, the UN Conference on Housing and Urban Sustainability, HUD, on behalf of the U.S. government, has prepared this U.S. 20/20 Habitat III Report to share the U.S. story around housing, community development, and the fostering of inclusive, sustainable, and resilient neighborhoods and communities across the United States over the last 20 years since Habitat III. This report includes a narrative about programs and policies over the past 20 years and includes thought-pieces and reflection on current challenges and future needs by members of the U.S. Habitat III National Committee, in the form of Contributing Essays. The report, including these Contributing Essays, has been structured around 3 main thematic chapters, which were formatted within PD&R with input from the U.S. Habitat III National Committee. These three themes are: Investing in People and Communities for Upward Mobility Securing Housing Options for All Building Resilience in an Era of Change