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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 162 / Wednesday, August 25, 2021 / Proposed Rules homeownership for Black and Latino households and requested that FHFA try to address the gap through the housing goals. One commenter encouraged FHFA to specifically consider the impact that any changes or revisions to the housing goals would have on borrowers of color. Another commenter proposed the creation of a new housing goal to focus on the racial homeownership gap. A number of commenters also noted the disproportionate impact the COVID19
pandemic has had on low-income households and people of color.
Several commenters expressed concern about whether low-income borrowers have adequate access to affordable refinancing options, particularly in light of the recent low interest rate environment. Two of the commenters suggested that the Enterprises create a streamlined refinance program in order to ensure that rate/term refinances are more available to lower-income households.
FHFA appreciates the thoughtful and thorough responses received on the ANPR and has analyzed the suggestions embedded in the comments. FHFA has taken these comments into account where relevant and possible in formulating the current proposed rule.
Other comments or recommendations will require further analysis and the issues raised may be addressed in future rulemakings.
With respect to requests for additional data, FHFA understands the value of data in evaluating and assessing the performance of the Enterprises in achieving the housing goals and is exploring additional ways to provide data to the public. FHFA intends to provide additional data on Enterprise loan purchases on the FHFA website. In determining which data can be provided, FHFA must consider that some data from the Enterprises are confidential or proprietary and may not be disclosed.
In the rulemaking establishing the housing goals for 2021, FHFA did not publish the single-family model paper that it usually publishes for each housing goals rulemaking. FHFA
received comments in response to the proposed 2021 housing goals rule and the ANPR that encouraged FHFA to publish the single-family model papers in future rulemakings. As with most previous housing goals rulemakings, FHFA has published the single-family model paper on its public website in conjunction with this housing goals proposed rule.18
18 Details on FHFAs single-family market models are available in the technical report The Size of the
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In response to comments about the importance of access to refinancing options for lower income borrowers, FHFA notes that both Enterprises introduced new refinancing options in April 2021. Eligible borrowers must have incomes at or below 80 percent of AMI, and the lender must provide the borrower a savings of at least $50 per month and at least a 50-basis point reduction in the borrowers interest rate.
FHFA estimates that borrowers who take advantage of this refinancing option could save an average of $1,200
to $3,000 per year.19 In addition, in July 2021, FHFA announced the elimination of the Adverse Market Refinance Fee, to help families reduce their housing costs.20
In response to comments about the racial homeownership gap, FHFA has taken a number of actions. For example, FHFA held a listening session on June 29, 2021 to obtain public input on the topic of closing the gap in sustainable homeownership. FHFA is also publishing on its website additional data on the race and ethnicity of loans that are eligible and qualified for housing goals credit. The additional data should assist those interested in analyzing the current housing goals performance of the Enterprises. Finally, as noted earlier and described in greater detail below, FHFA is proposing the creation of new area-based subgoals that separately measure the Enterprises purchases of mortgages in minority census tracts and low-income census tracts. FHFA is specifically requesting public comment on the proposed areabased subgoals, as well as all other aspects of this proposed rule.
IV. Single-Family Housing Goals A. Factors Considered in Setting the Proposed Single-Family Housing Goal Levels The Safety and Soundness Act requires FHFA to consider the following seven factors in setting the single-family housing goals:
1. National housing needs;
2. Economic, housing, and demographic conditions, including expected market developments;
Affordable Mortgage Market: 20222024 Enterprise Single-Family Housing Goals available at https
www.fhfa.gov/PolicyProgramsResearch/Research/
PaperDocuments/Market-Estimates_2022-2024.pdf.
19 See https www.fhfa.gov/Media/PublicAffairs/
Pages/FHFA-Announces-New-Refinance-Optionfor-Low-Income-Families-with-Enterprise-BackedMortgages.aspx.
20 See https www.fhfa.gov/Media/PublicAffairs/
Pages/FHFA-Eliminates-Adverse-Market-RefinanceFee.aspx.

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3. The performance and effort of the Enterprises toward achieving the housing goals in previous years;
4. The ability of the Enterprises to lead the industry in making mortgage credit available;
5. Such other reliable mortgage data as may be available;
6. The size of the purchase money conventional mortgage market, or refinance conventional mortgage market, as applicable, serving each of the types of families described, relative to the size of the overall purchase money mortgage market or the overall refinance mortgage market, respectively;
and 7. The need to maintain the sound financial condition of the Enterprises.21
FHFA has considered each of these seven statutory factors in setting the proposed benchmark levels for each of the single-family housing goals and subgoals.
In setting the proposed benchmark levels for the single-family housing goals, FHFA typically relies on statistical market models to evaluate these statutory factors and generate a point forecast for each goal as well as a confidence interval for the point forecast. FHFA then considers other statutory factors, as well as other relevant policy issues, to select a specific point forecast within the confidence interval as the proposed benchmark level.
In proposing the benchmark levels for the single-family housing goals for 20222024, FHFA considered the statutory factors, including the current economic conditions, national housing needs, recent market developments, and the past performance of the Enterprises on the housing goals.
Market forecast models. The purpose of FHFAs market forecast models is to forecast the market share of the goalqualifying mortgage originations in the market for the 20222024 period. The models are intended to generate reliable forecasts rather than to test various economic hypotheses about the housing market or to explain the relationship between variables. Therefore, following standard practice among forecasters and economists at other federal agencies, FHFA estimates a reduced-form equation for each of the housing goals and fits an Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average or ARIMA model to each goal share. The models look at the statistical relationship between a the historical market share for each singlefamily housing goal or subgoal, as calculated from monthly HMDA data, and b the historical values for various 21 See
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12 U.S.C. 4562e2B.

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