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The Biden administration is poised to unveil a series of steps aimed at addressing the U.S. shortage of entry-level homes and rental properties, moves designed to boost their financing and construction over the coming years, the Wall Street Journal reported. The changes would draw upon the administrative authority of government regulators such as the Federal Housing Finance Agency as Congress weighs broader policy changes tied to the debate over revamping U.S. infrastructure, according to a draft plan reviewed on Tuesday. Details could change before the White House releases its final version. FHFA oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two mortgage giants that back about half of the $11 trillion mortgage market. Individually, each regulatory move is technical and modest. Collectively, though, “they should have a meaningful impact, particularly because they are all focused on the lower end of the market, where there is the most need,” said Jim Parrott, a former Obama administration housing adviser, commenting on the draft. One change would allow Fannie and Freddie to invest more of their resources into rental housing by boosting an existing regulatory cap on their investments in apartment projects supported by the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. A second would expand an existing competitive grant program for Community Development Financial Institutions, to encourage affordable housing production. Yet another would increase the financing available for manufactured homes, which are built in factories rather than on a lot. They typically cost much less than homes built on sites and are often occupied by lower-income residents.

About 750,000 renter households will likely lose their homes this year after the Supreme Court blocked the federal eviction moratorium, according to Goldman Sachs economists, Politico reported. Analysts at the investment bank estimate that tenants owe between $12 billion and $17 billion to landlords as COVID-19 cases surge, with about 2.5 million to 3.5 million households behind on rent. The findings that Goldman released late Sunday mark one of the first comprehensive estimates of what could happen in the absence of the eviction moratorium, which was stopped as state and local governments continued to experience bottlenecks in the delivery of $46.5 billion in federal rental assistance. Given the slow pace of rental aid disbursement, Goldman's analysts expect that between 1 million and 2 million households will remain without support and at risk of eviction when the remaining state and local eviction bans expire at the end of September. The economists based their findings on rent delinquency data from real estate companies, the National Multifamily Housing Council and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Would-be home buyers priced out of the sales market are finding little consolation when they turn instead to the single-family rental market, the Wall Street Journal reported. Prices are soaring there as well. Asking rents for houses rose nearly 13% for the year to date through July, the highest annual increase in the past five years as tracked by real estate data company Yardi Matrix, which analyzed professionally managed properties. The sharp rise partly reflects increasing demand from people who can’t afford to buy homes as well as city-dwellers who moved to the suburbs to rent during the pandemic. Meanwhile, the supply of new houses also continues to trail historical levels relative to population growth, and builders in some places remain constrained by zoning laws and available land.

The clock is now ticking for millions of Americans who are set to face a series of stinging financial hardships in a matter of days, with the loss of federal protections against eviction and looming cuts to their weekly unemployment checks, the Washington Post reported. The two developments arrive at a moment of great tension in Washington, where the White House and Congress have grappled over the state of the country’s pandemic aid — and confronted their limited ability to authorize more of it — even as the economy shows potential signs of strain in the face of a resurgent coronavirus. The first blow arrived Friday, as landlords now can more easily begin removing tenants who have fallen behind on their monthly payments. The potential wave of evictions comes after the Supreme Court found the Biden administration’s recent eviction moratorium to be unconstitutional, leaving the White House powerless to issue its own new directive protecting as many as 6.4 million households that are not current on their rents, according to federal survey data. Many Americans also have struggled to obtain federal rental aid from state and local programs that were allocated tens of billions of dollars in past stimulus packages. Some of those same families could face additional financial peril as enhanced unemployment insurance benefits are set to lapse. Congress repeatedly has extended these weekly checks, but President Biden and some of his congressional allies have not sought to renew them ahead of their planned expiration Sept. 6. That could threaten 7.5 million people with the loss of much-needed income, according to a recent estimate from the Century Foundation. Read more. 

In related news, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is throwing support behind legislation aiming to expedite federal rental aid to tenants and landlords, The Hill reported. Pelosi yesterday lauded the efforts by House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) in seeking to reform the nationwide emergency rental assistance program, as state and local governments have been slow to distribute federal aid amid a housing crisis that has worsened amid the pandemic. Pelosi said that Waters was working on building a "consensus" behind the rental aid bill, which like many Democratic priorities will require compromise to overcome likely Republican resistance. In a Dear Colleague letter last week, Waters said the legislation she is working on — and plans to present for mark up on Sept. 13 — would require grantees “to accept the self-attestation of a tenant and to provide assistance directly to tenants in certain circumstances.” Waters said that the forthcoming bill would also allow landlords to “directly apply for back rent after providing notice to their tenants that they intend to apply” and instruct the Treasury Department and “grantees to conduct additional outreach to prospective tenants and landlords,” while also providing the Treasury with an additional $25 million to do so. Read more.

The parent company of Cadence Bank agreed Monday to pay roughly $8.5 million in fines and community investments to settle charges of lending discrimination brought by the Justice Department and a federal bank regulator, The Hill reported. Cadence Bancorporation will pay a $3 million fine to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and $5.5 million to expand credit opportunities for Black and Hispanic borrowers to resolve accusations of “redlining” minority customers in the Houston metropolitan area. From 2013 to 2017, prosecutors alleged that Cadence Bank concentrated “nearly all its branches, loan officers, marketing and outreach in majority-white neighborhoods,” according to the Justice Department complaint, despite serving one of the most diverse metropolitan areas in the U.S. All but one of Cadence’s 13 bank branches were located in majority-white census tracts even though 56 percent of census tracts in the Houston metro area were majority-Black and majority-Hispanic, according to the complaint. Cadence had only one branch in 2012 but gained 12 with the acquisition of Encore Bank in 2013, all but one of which were located in majority-white neighborhoods.

Congress is under new pressure to keep millions of Americans in their homes after the Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration’s latest eviction moratorium, The Hill reported. The court said in its 6-3 ruling late Thursday night that it is up to Congress to authorize a freeze on evictions, but lawmakers have been unable to make that happen. Members of Congress are urging state and local governments to quickly get federal rental assistance funds into the hands of eligible recipients. They are also weighing additional legislative action to extend the moratorium and speed up the delivery of rental aid. Democrats narrowly control both the House and the Senate, making congressional action challenging on divisive issues like the eviction ban. But they say they want to prevent a wave of evictions at a time when coronavirus cases have increased due in part to the highly contagious delta variant and the number of unvaccinated Americans.

A divided Supreme Court has ended a national moratorium on evictions in parts of the country ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, removing protections for millions of Americans who have not been able to make rent payments, the Washington Post reported. A coalition of landlords and real estate trade groups in Alabama and Georgia challenged the latest extension of a moratorium imposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, issued Aug. 3 and intended to run through Oct. 3. In an unsigned opinion released last night, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority agreed that the federal agency did not have the power to order such a ban. “It is indisputable that the public has a strong interest in combating the spread of the COVID-19 Delta variant,” the majority’s eight-page opinion said. “But our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends. . . . It is up to Congress, not the CDC, to decide whether the public interest merits further action here.” The court’s three liberal justices dissented and said the majority’s rush to end the moratorium was inappropriate and untimely. “The public interest strongly favors respecting the CDC’s judgment at this moment, when over 90% of counties are experiencing high transmission rates,” wrote Justice Stephen G. Breyer, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. The National Association of Realtors said the court’s action was correct “from both a legal standpoint and a matter of fairness. It brings to an end an unlawful policy that places financial hardship solely on the shoulders of mom-and-pop housing providers, who provide nearly half of all rental housing in America, and it restores property rights in America.” The moratorium had already been considered once by the high court. A district judge in D.C., and several other courts around the country, said in a series of rulings that powers granted to the CDC to protect public health during a pandemic did not include a ban on evictions for those who fell behind on their payments. But U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich stayed her most recent order so that the administration could appeal.