Summary of Partnership Actions
National Homeownership Strategy: Summary of 100 actions coauthored by a coalition of housing organizations, from the public and private sector (including Bill Wendel, founder of The Real Estate Cafe), convened by the Clinton administration in 1994. Presented as guidelines for local partnerships fifteen years ago, what do these action items reveal now about (1) what went wrong and (2) how the Obama adminstration can fast track a housing policy during it's first 100 days?
Production
Action 1: Assessing Regulatory Impacts on Affordable Homeownership
Urge HUD to lead federal effort to review existing federal regulations and to make federal agencies aware of the need to assess new policies according to their cumulative impact on housing costs and develop alternative policies to mitigate these adverse impacts.
Action 2: Modernizing Planning, Zoning, and Subdivision Laws
Work with American Planning Association to complete "Growing Smart Initiative", a program for modernizing America's planning, zoning, and subdivision control laws.
Action 3: Education and Technical Assistance for Regulatory Reform
Initiate education and technical assistance effort to promote concept of regulatory
reform among state and local governments.
Action 4: Consensus Building and Mediation Techniques for Affordable Homeownership
Use problemsolving, consensus building, and mediation techniques to achieve multijurisdictional agreements for acceptance and development of affordable housing.
Action 5: Statewide Standards for Impact Fees
Encourage legally defensible, fair, and affordable statewide standards for impact fees on new construction.
Action 6: Models of Regulatory Flexibility and Development Controls
Establish series of continuing demonstration projects to promote regulatory reform of housing development, initiate demonstration projects to reinvent administration of development controls.
Action 7: Expanded Research on Regulatory Reform
Expand research efforts to prepare model land use regulatory standards and housing development guidance materials for State and local governments, identify and analyze State and local land development review and approval processes and systems.
Action 8: Building Code Reform
Improve consistency of building codes and code administration, encourage states and local governments to adopt model codes, develop model codes which consider the impact on housing affordability, and promote greater efficiency and consistency in regulation of modular housing.
Action 9: Education and Outreach for Higher Density Home Construction
Undertake comprehensive education and outreach initiative to promote zoning for higher density single family homes, encourage local zoning reform, and provide education on the market potential and desirability of smaller starter homes.
Action 10: Fast Track Administrative Review Procedures for Starter Homes
Develop and disseminate to State and local jurisdictions a model system to fast track all administrative review procedures for homes meeting established starter home criteria.
Action 11: Removing Barriers to Mortgage Financing for Starter Homes
Review lending and appraisal guidelines to identify barriers to mortgage financing for small starter homes and similar arrangements that facilitate first time homeownership, seek ways to reduce or eliminate such barriers.
Action 12: Stock Plans and Guidance Materials for Starter Homes
Develop and disseminate stock plans and guidance materials reflecting broad customer preferences in order to produce high quality starter homes.
Action 13: Flexible Regulations to Accommodate Home Rehabilitation
Work with model code groups to initiate a national effort to ensure that State and local building codes and related regulatory systems accommodate affordable home rehabilitation and renovation.
Action 14: Home Rehabilitation Research
Work with the home remodeling and rehabilitation industry to undertake research program for developing cost effective rehabilitation technologies and techniques specifically focused on individual component systems of the home.
Action 15: Technical Evaluation and Guidance Materials for Energy Conservation
Establish technical evaluation and dissemination program and develop guidance materials to accelerate adoption of cost effective energy conservation technologies in home rehabilitation and remodeling.
Action 16: Affordable Home Technology Program
Initiate National Affordable Home Technology Program to show how innovative construction methods, materials, products, and development practices can help build affordable and energy efficient homes and subdivisions.
Action 17: Information, Training, and Technical Assistance for Innovative Technologies
Raise awareness and communication about how technological innovation can promote affordable homeownership.
Action 18: Affordable Home Design and Construction Awards
Sponsor annual partnership awards to recognize exemplary achievements in design and construction of both subsidized and market rate affordable and/or lower cost homes.
Action 19: Stock Plans for Building Affordable Homes
Explore feasibility of developing and disseminating a series of stock affordable housing plans for use by building industry which would identify opportunities for incorporating new technologies.
Action 20: Enhanced Homebuilding Product Evaluation
Undertake an effort to improve the product evaluation process to accelerate the introduction of new products and promote their broad acceptance.
Action 21: HUD Technical Evaluations of Homebuilding Products
HUD should review the scope, procedures, and use of the current HUD Technical Suitability of Products program and its Ex Tech 233 program in order to expand and promote broader recognition of the program to alleviate concerns about product liability.
Action 22: Research on Technological Innovation for Affordable Homes
Develop public private housing research agenda for guiding both private and public research efforts to develop new technologies for affordable, energy efficient, resource efficient housing, and foster communication to identify research needs and priorities.
Action 23: Regulatory Review of Manufactured Homes
HUD should work in cooperation with State and local governments, private industry, and consumers to review and update its current system of regulating manufactured housing.
Action 24: State Participation in Manufactured Homes
Improve and strengthen role of State governments in manufactured housing.
Action 25: Cooperative Research for Manufactured Homes
Initiate cooperative research and demonstration efforts to accelerate development of technologies for manufactured housing.
Action 26: Manufactured Home Industry Initiatives
Determine feasibility of establishing programs to improve nationwide installation standards and enforcement, and generate an industrywide consensus on warranties that offer consumers comprehensive coverage on both the manufactured home and its installation.
Action 27: Zoning and Land Development Reform for Manufactured Homes
Identify and promote zoning and land development policies that are more conducive to
manufactured housing.
Action 28: Access to Financing for Manufactured Homes
Undertake a comprehensive program to expand availability of financing for purchasers of manufactured homes.
Financing
Action 29: Alternative Approaches to Homebuying Transactions
Involve appraisal and title insurance industries in exploring alternative methods of processing title insurance, appraisals and legal services, reducing transaction costs for the homebuyer without increasing risk to mortgagee or investor.
Action 30: Technological Improvements in Mortgage Financing
Initiate industry efforts to develop and use technological and legal infrastructure to streamline and automate origination processes (ie: automated underwriting services).
Action 31: Lender Processing Time Reductions
Design procedural and technological improvements to measurably reduce lender processing
times.
Action 32: Standardize Homebuying Settlement Procedures
Support standardization of settlement closing instructions.
Action 33: Bulk Purchase of Homebuying Settlement Services
Investigate feasibility of bulk purchase of settlement services such as title insurance, appraisals, and legal work to reduce acquisition costs for homebuyers.
Action 34: Local Government Development Fees and Homeownership Trust Funds
Encourage State and local governments to develop affordable housing trust funds using dedicated revenue sources.
Action 35: Home Mortgage Loan to Value Flexibility
Develop collaboration of lending institutions, secondary market investors, mortgage insurers, and others to work to reduce homebuyer downpayment requirements.
Action 36: Subsidies to Reduce Downpayment and Mortgage Costs
Support continued Federal and state funding of targeted homeownership subsidies for households not otherwise able to purchase homes.
Action 37: IRAs and 401(k)s for Homeownership Downpayments
Support legislation removing negative tax consequences for early withdrawal of money from tax deferred individual retirement accounts when the money is used for downpayment assistance for first time homebuyers.
Action 38: Savings Plans for Homeownership
Identify and promote effective methods of saving for homeownership.
Action 39: Mortgage Options and Homebuyer Education
Consider methods of itemizing cost of mortgage terms to help the homebuyer weigh mortgage options and their associated costs.
Action 40: Home Mortgage Foreclosure Requirements
Analyze existing State foreclosure laws and support future efforts to implement streamlined foreclosure procedures that are more consistent from State to State.
Action 41: Home Purchase and Rehabilitation Financing with FHA 203(k)
Seek to expand in collaboration with HUD, the number of conventional lending institutions and other FHA approved lenders actively participating in the FHA 203(k) program.
Action 42: Conventional Financing for Home Purchase and Rehabilitation
Work to increase availability of conventional financing for home purchase and rehabilitation.
Action 43: Rehabilitation Financing
Work to expand financing opportunities for home rehabilitation needs; seek, in collaboration with HUD and others, to improve use of the FHA Title I Home Improvement Program as a viable form of rehabilitation financing for lower income homeowners.
Action 44: Flexible Mortgage Underwriting Criteria
Support efforts to increase local lender awareness and use of flexible underwriting criteria established by secondary market, FHA, and VA.
Action 45: Public Private Leveraging for Affordable Home Financing
Support development of a comprehensive, nationwide analysis of local public private homebuyer programs to ascertain which elements are indicators of long term leveraging success, and sponsor other efforts for local partners to promote replication of proven approaches.
Action 46: Reinventing FHA Single Family Home Mortgage Insurance
Work together to reinvent the FHA single family home mortgage insurance program to make it more entrepreneurial and more responsible to its customers.
Action 47: Native American Home Financing Needs
Promote homeownership for Native Americans by expanding policies and programs that empower tribes to design homeownership models that meet their cultural, spiritual, and functional needs.
Action 48: Small Rental Properties to Support Affordable Homeownership
Provide opportunities for low income homebuyers to purchase owner occupied, small rental properties.
Action 49: Continuation of the Mortgage Revenue Bond Program and Mortgage Credit Certificates
Promote continuation of Mortgage Revenue Bond (MRB) program and Mortgage Credit Certificates program.
Action 50: Energy Efficiency and Home Mortgage Underwriting
Encourage the consideration of energy efficiency for lender qualification systems, promote new qualification systems by federal agencies, and study energy efficient impacts on current FHA, VA, and USDA home financing programs.
Action 51: Cooperative Homeownership
Seek to increase availability of financing for cooperative housing both through development of new cooperative housing and conversion of existing rental housing to cooperative resident ownership.
Building Communities
Action 52: Homeownership Education and Technical Assistance for Communities
Design and undertake comprehensive local education and technical assistance campaign to build capacity of local housing providers to work collaboratively.
Action 53: Spotlight on Successful Local Partnerships
Publicize how localities have successfully established local partnerships in order to let other communities with similar homeownership issues and needs realize their full potential.
Action 54: Employer Assisted Homeownership
Identify successful models of employer assisted homeownership and promote wider understanding and acceptance of these models among public and private organizations.
Action 55: Location Efficient Home Mortgages
Examine whether underwriting standards properly reflect household savings that can accrue from families owning homes close to their places of employment; undertake demonstrations to determine whether the level of quantifiable savings warrants broader use within the home mortgage lending community.
Action 56: Comprehensive Community Revitalization
Recognize targeted, comprehensive investment of public and private resources as essential for successful community revitalization and participate in activities that support comprehensive programs for neighborhood change.
Action 57: Homeownership Zones
Work with HUD to encourage creation of local homeownership zones particularly in communities with federally designate Empowerment Zones and Enterprise Communities or State designated enterprise zones.
Action 58: Federal and State Resources for Affordable Homeownership
Support continued availability of sufficient public resources to help finance affordable homeownership.
Action 59: Promoting Mixed Income Neighborhoods
Encourage development of urban neighborhoods providing a wide range of housing choices to families of all income levels.
Action 60: Redeveloping Vacant Properties
Encourage efforts to expedite turnaround of foreclosed properties held by government agencies, encourage banking industry to adopt supportive recycling of foreclosed homes, support State and local efforts to revise tax foreclosure and redemption laws, and develop infill property investment and development policies that promote neighborhood revitalization.
Action 61: Mortgage Credit for Rural Areas
Initiate series of activities to increase availability of capital for rural housing finance.
Action 62: Rural Homeownership Demonstration Model in Empowerment Zones, Enterprise Communities, and Champion Communities
Determine how resources made available to 227 rural EZ, EC and CCs can be focussed to increase homeownership, choose three or four models for demonstration.
Action 63: Expanding Rural Home Financing
Support the increased availability of rural home mortgage financing from local, State, regional, and national lending institutions and government agencies.
Action 64: Homeownership Capacity Building in Rural Areas
Support capacity building activities for housing developers, regional planning councils, councils of government, and rural nonprofit organizations, including more efficient use of technical assistance funding from Federal and State agencies.
Action 65: Rehabilitating Rural Homes
Undertake to increase the number of Americans owning homes in rural areas that are of good physical quality and make available information on how to rehabilitate homes in a cost effective manner.
Action 66: Homeownership Opportunities for Native Americans
Increase homeownership opportunities on reservations through collaborative efforts by HUD, USDA, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Federal Home Loan Bank System, secondary mortgage market investors, and other members of the partnership.
Opening Markets
Action 67: The President's Fair Housing Council
Encourage President's Fair Housing Council to convene periodic meetings among Federal agencies and State, local, and private sector partners open to all organizations within the housing industry.
Action 68: Voluntary Fair Housing Self Enforcement and Affirmative Marketing by Homeownership Industry Organizations
Support voluntary commitments to engage in fair housing enforcement and affirmative marketing to underserved groups and people facing discrimination in homeownership markets.
Action 69: Metropolitan Regional Fair Housing Initiatives
Promote formation of metropolitan regional fair housing activities and make agreements for affordable housing to encourage metropolitan diversity and expand locational choice for homebuyers, particularly those in underserved groups.
Action 70: Voluntary Self Enforcement and Affirmative Marketing by Mortgage Lending and Homeowners Insurance Industry Organizations
Encourage voluntary commitments from industry groups and individual firms to fair lending and fair insurance practices through accords or statements of principles.
Action 71: Access to Home Mortgage Lending Data
Support Federal efforts to enhance local fair lending efforts by improving access to Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data.
Action 72: Research on Fair Lending and Insurance Issues
Support additional research on sources of discrimination in mortgage lending and property insurance and ways in which these sources can be corrected to open markets and expand homeownership opportunities for underserved populations and communities.
Action 73: Market Review of Underserved Groups and Communities
Conduct market review of traditionally underserved communities in localities to determine feasibility and benefits of increasing the number of minority professionals within partners? workforce to service those markets.
Action 74: Workplace Diversity in Hiring and Promotion
Encourage housing industry organizations to determine their current level of personnel diversity, increase their diversity through hiring and promotional efforts, where necessary, and provide educational seminars to highlight outreach activities both within the organization and in the communities served by the organization.
Action 75: Research on the Homeownership Impacts of Diversity
Support and conduct research on the potential benefits of workplace diversity in terms of expanding homeownership opportunities through greater sensitivity to and understanding of underserved populations and communities.
Action 76: Mentoring Minority Owned Homeownership Businesses
Create and support mentoring programs providing technical assistance to minority owned businesses in the housing industry in order to develop stronger ties between minorities and mainstream housing industry, and facilitate homeownership investment in underserved communities.
Action 77: Marketing Homeownership Products and Programs in Foreign Languages
Support publication and dissemination of homeownership information in a wide variety of languages and also in formats adapted to the needs of people with disabilities.
Action 78: Tailoring Home Design and Construction to Diverse Populations
Encourage architects and homebuilders to develop nontraditional products such as large homes with in law units for multigenerational households and extended families, homes accessible to people with disabilities, and homes designed for elderly households.
Action 79: Homeownership Models That Work
Identify replicable local homeownership examples of models that work, making information available to mortgage lenders, real estate brokers, and nonprofit agencies for use in designing effective and profitable programs for affirmative outreach and creative financing for underserved populations.
Action 80: "One Stop" Home Financing Catalogue
Compile one stop catalogue of home financing products, from both the public and private sectors, that are especially targeted to underserved populations and communities.
Homeownership Education and Counseling
Action 81: National Institute for Homeownership Education and Counseling
Support establishment of a National Institute for Homeownership Education and Counseling to promote greater consistency in this highly decentralized industry, and to accelerate learning process among all providers public, private, and nonprofit.
Action 82: Federal Efforts to Build Local Homeownership Counseling Capacity
Work with HUD to enhance Federal efforts to build capacity among nonprofit homeownership counseling organizations.
Action 83: Research on Homeownership Education and Counseling
Promote further research by public and private entities regarding effectiveness of local homeownership counseling efforts.
Action 84: Clearinghouse for Homeownership Education and Counseling
Support a national clearinghouse to disseminate homeownership counseling and education materials in order to insure that all homeownership counseling providers have comprehensive and timely information.
Action 85: Curriculum Development for Homeownership Education and Counseling
Work collaboratively to foster housing industry consensus on the essential elements of homeownership education and counseling to be covered in training.
Action 86: Training and Accreditation for Homeownership Education and Counseling
Develop training mechanism to reach local homeownership education and counseling agencies using curriculum developed through Action 85.
Action 87: Cultural Sensitivity and Diversity in Homeownership Education and Counseling
Work to increase cultural sensitivity and diversity in homeownership counseling industry.
Action 88: Education on Alternative Forms of Homeownership
Collect and disseminate information on alternative forms of homeownership, including legal, financial, and management issues in order to benefit households which otherwise may not be able to own their own homes.
Action 89: Task Force on Long Term Funding of Homeownership Counseling
Establish a task force to develop a viable plan for long term funding of nonprofit homeownership counseling efforts.
Action 90: Nonprofit Business Planning for Homeownership Counseling Organizations
Develop guidance materials and training workshops that focus on nonprofit business planning, fundraising methods, and establish sound management, accounting, and budgeting systems to increase business expertise of nonprofit organizations so that they can secure adequate funding for their homeownership education and counseling efforts.
Action 91: HUD Allocation of Counseling Funds
Coordinate local homeownership counseling funding with HUD's counseling budget and encourage revisions,if necessary, in HUD's process for allocating counseling funds.
Action 92: Showcasing Successful Collaborative Homeownership Counseling Programs
Develop guidebook and videos highlighting successful local homeownership counseling programs.
Action 93: Local Homeownership Counseling Roundtables
Investigate feasibility of sponsoring local group facilitation or roundtable discussions concerning integration of homeownership education and counseling into homebuying process.
Raising Awareness
Action 94: Publicizing Homeownership Opportunities and Achievements
Undertake public outreach activities to promote homeownership opportunities for all Americans.
Action 95: Homeownership Site Visits
Make frequent site visits in order to broaden awareness of importance of this homeownership initiative.
Action 96: Successful Transitions to Homeownership
Emphasize successful transitions to homeownership among underserved households, including immigrant families, former public housing residents, and families who previously experienced unsafe and inadequate housing conditions.
Action 97: Homeownership Educational Centers and Special Events
Seek to educate the public about benefits of and opportunities for homeownership through established information centers, special events such as homeownership fairs, and high school and college education programs.
Action 98: Educating Homebuyers and Homeowners Through Technology and the Media
Use latest technology to reach a broad array of potential homeowners, including Internet, computer based learning, and small local media outlets.
Action 99: Homebuyer Access to Government Owned Homes
Improve coordination among Federal agencies in selling government owned and foreclosed homes to consumers, especially to low and moderate income first time homebuyers.
Action 100: Research Networks and Information Clearinghouses on Homeownership Data
Track national homeownership rate and other important data nationwide and for targeted population groups and geographic areas, identify key trends, use this data to publicize successes, monitor progress, design homeownership policies and program strategies, and build a national information network with researchers from public and private organizations across the country.
For a fuller description of the actions and the National Partners in Homeownership's recommendations to implement them, please see the full document, The National Homeownership Strategy: Partners in the American Dream (available from HUD User at 1-800-245-2691).