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House Approves Two Important Housing Bills
The House last week passed two NAHB-supported housing bills by voice vote, sending them to the Senate for further debate and consideration.
The first bill, H.R. 3146, the 21st Century FHA Housing Act of 2009, would help to modernize the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) by providing much-needed resources to improve its ability to insure safe and affordable mortgage products for millions of Americans.
With FHA’s market share increasing dramatically in the last two years, the infrastructure has not kept up. H.R. 3146 would provide the authority and funding needed for the FHA to hire qualified staff and to upgrade decades-old technology systems in addition to providing a number of legislative tweaks to allow the agency to make its mortgage insurance programs fully operational.
The second bill, H.R. 3527, the FHA Multifamily Loan Limit Adjustment Act of 2009, would allow the HUD secretary to increase the mortgage loan limits for elevator buildings by up to 50% of the amounts specified for non-elevator units.
The bill would also give the HUD secretary the authority to designate other “extremely high cost areas” in addition to Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and the Virgin Islands. In short, H.R. 3527 addresses the fact that current FHA multifamily loan limits are severely restricting the ability to use FHA insurance programs to finance rental housing in many urban areas.
NAHB will continue to support these two important housing bills as they make their way through the legislative process in the coming months.
To view the legislation, click here and type the bill number in the box in the upper center of the screen.
For additional information, e-mail Scott Meyer at NAHB, or call him at 800-368-5242 x8144.
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