NLIHC's Advocate's Guide

The National Low Income Housing Coalition publishes an annual Advocate's Guide, an excellent guide to housing and community development policies and programs. Click here to view it.

Out of Reach Report

The National Low Income Housing Coalition also releases the Out of Reach Report annually, which contains information on housing affordability in every jurisdiction in the country. Click here to access the NC section of 2007-8 Out of Reach Report, which was released on April 7, 2008. 

Priced Out in 2004

Technical Assistance Collaborative's biennial study verifies that low-income people with disabilities are experiencing a national housing affordability crisis.  Published in collaboration with the CCD Housing Task Force with funding from the Melville Charitable Trust. Click here for more information.

Section 8 Made Simple: 2nd Edition (June 2003)

Technical Assistance Collaborative's  guidebook contains practical information to assist people with disabilities and the entire disability community to navigate through the Section 8 program more successfully.  Click here for more information.

The Broker "Tax": Brokers Gouge Borrowers with Weaker Credit

If you and your neighbor have the same financial qualifications and apply for the same type of home loan, you would expect to get about the same interest rate.  Not necessarily so according to research we released today.  Steered Wrong: Brokers, Borrowers and Subprime Loans  shows that for people with weaker credit, brokers consistently charge significantly more than direct lenders.

During the first four years of a mortgage, a typical subprime borrower who gets a mortgage through a broker pays $5,222 more than if he or she had obtained the loan directly from a lender.

This research released by Center for Responsible Lending was based on an analysis of 1.7 million mortgages made between 2004 and 2006 to people representing the full credit spectrum. To find out more, please click here, where you can download the full report.  

The Best Value in the Subprime Market: State Predatory Lending Reforms

The Center for Responsible Lending released new research showing that strong state laws do the best job of protecting credit-strapped families from predatory lending in the subprime mortgage market. The study shows that abusive lending drops significantly in states with strong laws, yet borrowers in the subprime market still have ready access to credit. In the most surprising finding, the research also shows that borrowers in states with predatory lending laws pay comparable interest rates for subprime mortgages -- and often even lower rates. Click here to download the report.

Same Risks, Higher Prices: Race, Ethnicity Translate into Higher-Rate Loans

The Center for Responsible Lending has also released Same Risks, Higher Prices: Race, Ethnicity Translate into Higher-Rate Loans.  In this study, which examined 50,000 subprime loans, CRL found that African-Americans and Latinos are almost a third more likely to get a high-priced loan than white borrowers with the same credit scores. To download this report, click here.

Losing Ground

A new Center for Responsible Lending study reveals that 2.2 Million borrowers face foreclosure on subprime home loans, and will lose as much as $164 billion due to foreclosures in the subprime mortgage market.

The Losing Ground study is the first comprehensive, nationwide review of millions of subprime mortgages originated from 1998 through the third quarter of 2006. CRL finds that despite low interest rates and a favorable economic environment during the past several years, the subprime market has experienced high foreclosure rates, and we project that one out of five (19.4%) subprime loans issued during 2005-2006 will fail.

The report discusses a number of factors that drive subprime foreclosures—these include adjustable rate mortgages with steep built-in rate and payment increases, prepayment penalties, limited income documentation, and no escrow for taxes and insurance.  For more information and to visit CRL's website, click here.  To download this report in .pdf format, click here.

Don't Buy the Myths: Renting Can Be A Smart Investment

Homeownership is not always the best alternative for people.  Every year, thousands of Americans enter into homeownership for the wrong reasons, and often could have saved money by renting.  Click here to download the report, Don't Buy the Myths: Renting Can Be A Smart Investment, published by the National Multi Housing Council and the National Apartment Association.

32 Years of Housing Data: 1973-2005

Click here to download a new report, 32 Years of Housing Data, available from the HUD USER web site. You can find the report in the "AHS Based Analyses" section of that page.

This report uses the national American Housing Surveys from 1973 through 2005 to take a long view of how the American housing stock has changed over the past three decades. Aimed at a general audience, it is filled with color graphs and tables that demonstrate the changing characteristics of the housing units in which we live. This document will make a useful supplement for anyone teaching a class in urban studies, housing, or similar subjects. Nonprofit, trade, and advocacy groups may want to keep it on hand to show their stakeholders just how much things have changed and the directions of current trends.

The appendix tables will also be useful to data analysts. Have you ever found yourself going through volume after volume of the AHS reports, just to pull out one or two numbers from each in order to construct a time series? The appendices save you the trouble. While they certainly don't contain every statistic in the AHS reports, the main housing indicators are all organized by year, ready to be copied from the PDF and pasted into your spreadsheet.

Other National Links

Click here for more National Links.