News & Resources

On June 28, USMI released its seventh annual MI in Your State report on the role of private MI at the national and state levels. The report finds that the private MI industry has helped more than 38 million low down payment borrowers over its 66-year history to secure mortgage financing, including over 1 million borrowers in 2022, according to data from the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The report finds that low down payment mortgages with private MI help families get off the sidelines and purchase homes much sooner than waiting many years to amass a 20% down payment. Texas, Florida, California, Illinois, and Ohio ranked as the top five states for mortgage financing with private MI in 2022. The full report and state fact sheets are available here.

In late June, USMI submitted a comment letter to the FHFA in response to the agency’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPR) on “Fair Lending, Fair Housing, and Equitable Housing Finance Plans.” USMI fully supports enforcement of fair lending and fair housing statutes and regulations to ensure that all home-ready consumers, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, age, or other protected class, have access to mortgage financing. USMI specifically commented on the proposed requirements concerning the GSEs’ “Equitable Housing Finance Plans,” and provided observations and recommendations on the following topics: (1) evaluation of the GSEs’ plans; (2) stakeholder engagement; and (3) faithful implementation of the Prior Approval for Enterprise Products Final Rule that USMI has commended for creating a more transparent and objective process for approving new products and activities.

On July 18, the Capital Markets Subcommittee of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee held a hearing titled, “Oversight of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance,” in which Director Erik Gerding of the Corporate Finance Division of the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) testified. During the hearing, Reps. Wiley Nickel (D-NC) and Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) expressed concerns about the SEC’s proposed rule to “Prohibit Conflicts of Interest in Certain Securitizations” and its potential impact on mortgage insurance-linked note (MILN) transactions. Private mortgage insurers have used MILNs to procure reinsurance through the capital markets since 2015, “and serve homebuyers across the country who continue to experience affordability barriers,” according to Rep. Nickel. Later in the hearing, Rep. Cleaver noted that he and Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) sent a letter to the SEC in May raising the same concerns regarding the proposed rule, adding that MILNs are used “to disperse concentrated risk and provide protections against elevated losses.” Director Gerding indicated that the SEC is considering a number of comments and concerns including those expressed by the representatives and noted that he “was not sure that the particular financial product […] would in fact be covered by the rule.” The discussion concluded with Director Gerding offering to meet with Reps. Cleaver and Luetkemeyer’s staff to discuss this issue.

In March, all six private mortgage insurers submitted a comment letter to the SEC in response to this proposed rule.

On July 10-13, the FHFA’s Office of Financial Technology hosted the Velocity TechSprint. The event convened mortgage and technology stakeholders from the real estate finance sector to discuss leveraging technology to improve transparency in the mortgage process while also reducing costs and delivery times. USMI commends FHFA for fostering initiatives that seek to innovate the industry and expand homeownership opportunities for all, and notes that the mortgage insurance industry has embraced the use of technology, including standardized application programming interfaces, in order to better and more efficiently serve consumers and lenders in the housing market. Home4ALL won the Eureka Award for its proposed home.gov website to centralize borrower and loan information and use a chatbot to navigate the mortgage process. The FINnovation team won the Jump & Crowd Favorite Award with a proposal to create a platform to streamline data acquisition and verification in mortgage lending.

On July 12, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the June 2023 Consumer Price Index (CPI), showing that core inflation only grew by 0.2% month-over-month in June on a seasonally adjusted basis. The year-over-year inflation rate dropped to 3% for June. In a blog post by the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) titled, “Latest Inflation News Bodes Well for Housing,” NAR’s Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said, “low inflation means low mortgage rates […] Therefore, decelerating consumer prices could steadily lift home sales and increase home production in a few months.” Moreover, the blog notes that the housing industry continues to call on the Federal Reserve to continue pausing rate hikes, which could lessen the pressure on mortgage rates.

On June 29, ATTOM, a curator of land, property, and real estate data, released its second-quarter 2023 U.S. Home Affordability Report. The report found that home affordability remains one of the biggest housing challenges, as “median-priced single-family homes and condos are less affordable in the second quarter of 2023 compared to historical averages in 98 percent of counties around the nation.” This is consistent with USMI’s National Homeownership Market Survey from 2021, which also found that affordability and saving for a large down payment remain the biggest obstacles to accessing homeownership. However, over half of the survey’s respondents noted the importance of access to low down payment mortgages and the value of MI to help borrowers qualify for mortgage financing. In fact, as USMI’s 2023 MI in Your State report found, saving for a 5% down payment allows potential homebuyers access homeownership three times faster than saving for a 20% down payment.