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Gate House Strategies Chairman Brian Montgomery, in a piece for Housing Wire, shared a few of his thoughts on the opportunities awaiting the new HUD Secretary, Scott Turner.
As HUD turn 60, Brian writes, Secretary Turner, takes over as the 19th secretary at an extraordinary time: “The challenges in the housing market are many, including persistently high mortgage rates, a paucity of housing inventory, growing demand for subsidized housing, record levels of homelessness, and large-scale redevelopment needs following natural disasters.”
Turner, who led President Trump’s Opportunity Zones initiative in the first term, will lead “a $73 billion enterprise that additionally controls more than $2.6 trillion in government-guaranteed mortgages.” More than $43 billion of HUD’s current budget assists over 4.6 million households through public housing, with extraordinary unmet needs. This need and the rise in homelessness is not unrelated, Brian says, to “the housing affordability crisis that millions of Americans are encountering.”
Turner will head HUD’s robust fair housing enforcement while “resolving the Biden Administration’s withdrawal of the previous Trump administration “disparate impact” rule.”
Secretary Turner faces uncertainty with FHA’s $1.5 trillion portfolio, despite record levels of capital, given the large number of redefaults in recent months and “more than 1.7 million FHA borrowers who have utilized the “partial claim.” The HECM program has been under pressure, also despite strong capital levels “due to the current interest rate environment as “higher interest rates have slowed the origination volume and significantly impacted lenders’ warehouse lines.”
“Often overlooked,” Brian wrote, is Ginnie Mae, “whose senior leadership is understaffed with recent retirements and staff departures” and which, with an important link to global financial markets “will need to transition its Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) platform from pool-level to loan-level functionality.”
Hunter Kurtz, Vice Chair and Founding Partner at Gate House Strategies, has spent his professional career working in the affordable housing industry at the local, state and federal levels. In the first Trump Administration, he served as Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well Deputy Chief of Staff to HUD Secretary Ben Carson. At the local level, Hurtz served as Director of the City of Detroit’s Department of Housing and Revitalization, in Mayor Mike Duggan’s administration.
Tell us about your work at Gate House.
I’m on the affordable housing and community development side of the business. I work with local governments, affordable housing developers and public housing authorities, helping them solve problems and unwind the larger issues they face in their work to create more housing opportunities in their communities. Housing needs and solutions are always uniquely local. Boise isn’t Fort Wayne which isn’t Mobile which isn’t San Antonio. We know how to guide local officials and their partners to be as effective in meeting their goals as possible. We help identify what they can seek from the federal government and other sources of financing, tools and unique solutions that are best suited for them. And because the full Gate House team covers a full spectrum of experience in the government, the private sector and the financial markets, we are effective in helping clients navigate the different players and cultures involved in successful community development efforts. Public housing authorities have their unique language, as do lenders, federal officials, and housing developers, just to name a few of key players in any proposed project. Gate House specializes in helping all of them better understand each other and work together for results.
What can the federal government do under the incoming administration to make things better for localities working to create affordable housing?
Mostly get out of the way. Look, housing is having a moment right now because the affordability crisis has risen to the level of an urgent national policy agenda matter. The new administration will be under pressure from all sides to produce real solutions. But for the most part, the biggest hurdles that local affordable housing practitioners face are rules and regulations.
Going after unnecessary regulatory barriers sounds like something the incoming administration would be very focused on.
Absolutely. For instance, there are so many federal requirements for reports which are quite outdated, and frankly useless. Still, they demand an enormous amount of valuable staff time that could otherwise be spent on solving real problems and creating opportunities. We did an analysis, for example, that revealed public housing authority and tribal housing staffs spend over 20 percent of their work week producing reports. Many of these reports sent back to Washington are never read and serve no purpose, yet they are legally required to be submitted. I’m confident the new HUD Secretary will be looking at unnecessary regs that hinder real progress toward greater housing affordability in America.
Executives and board members in financial services are increasingly held accountable for the actions of their firms. Among their many responsibilities, they are required in particular to be engaged in their company’s efforts to adhere to the letter and spirit of laws that seek to ensure consumer protection.
As the regulatory landscape facing executives in the financial services industry has grown increasingly complex – and integral to their enterprises and their firms’ reputations – so too has the need to demonstrate and document the actions taken by their firms.
Gate House Chairman and Partner Brian Montgomery recently outlined the challenges facing executives in a piece for HousingWire. As he argued, even with the best of intentions, there are often inconsistencies and conflicting interpretations of what firms need or ought to do — and what executives need or ought to in order to stay apprised of their firm’s efforts. One thing we know it that it will require vigilance and a lot of hard work to get it right.
Recognizing the important need in C-suites and executive board rooms, Gate House Strategies has launched a new subsidiary, Gate House Compliance, LLC, to provide fair lending and compliance management services. The firm, comprised of veterans in financial services and specialists in fair lending and consumer protection law and regulation (and support from CrossCheck Compliance’s deep bench of experts), will advise and support compliance regimes across multiple asset classes, including mortgage, student loan, credit card, and other secured and unsecured credit products.
The addition of Gate House Compliance is a timely and critical expansion of the firm’s ability to serve the growing needs of the industry. After careful examination, clients can choose services that complement their current compliance program, or on a subscription basis, they may utilize Gate House Compliance 365, a comprehensive system of ongoing support of fundamental services and a coordinated, dynamic approach to the management of regulatory risk.
The important policy goals our country require executives to be engaged. They need experience, perspective, and insight in order to do what is right and, and – when the path is made unclear by conflicting policies or interpretations – what is prudent for business.
The goal for Gate House Compliance is to put executives and firms ahead of the curve and ahead of the scrutiny that characterizes the current environment and road ahead. Vigilance and a team of experts with a steady hand will be a must.
Gate House Partner and Chairman Brian Montgomery shared his perspective on the regulatory landscape facing executives in the financial service industry — the need to act responsibly with respect to fair lending laws and to understand the complexity of it all – in a piece for Housing Wire.
“[M]ultiple agencies pursuing the same general goals sometimes creates inconsistencies or conflicting interpretations of policy, making it difficult for financial institutions to navigate uncharted waters, even with the best of intentions.” Montgomery wrote.
Montgomery, who served as Deputy Secretary of HUD and FHA Commissioner twice, emphasized the risks, particularly in the areas of lending and loan servicing: “Recent regulatory actions have targeted marketing practices, credit allocation and product offerings,” he said, with top executives more often being held accountable for their “company policies, procedures, operations, and culture.”
With risk to the firm not only financially but reputationally, the need to “identify gaps that may exist in their knowledge and experience and structure management teams accordingly” is paramount if they are to demonstrate to overseers that they possess a comprehensive approach to their compliance obligations.
Private industry participants have their work cut out for them as they go about the critical work of upholding the letter and spirit of our country’s fair lending laws, Montgomery said. Both private firms and government must work together at times, with private industry willing to serve as partners to government and the government for their part providing “transparency, open dialogue and technology improvements” to make our system work.
In their recent article for Reverse Mortgage Daily, Gate House Founding Partners Brian Montgomery, Keith Becker and Dror Oppenheimer discuss the implications of the first positive capital ratio for the HECM program in six years.
The Gate House team, who worked together at the Federal Housing Administration managing the HECM program, provided their unique perspective and explained that important policy changes, and most certainly strong home price appreciation, have contributed to the substantial improvement in the HECM capital ratio.
Nevertheless, they argued, the results do not “provide a reason for complacency or assurance of future (positive) results” and therefore continued vigilance to ensure the program “is not continuously subsidized by the premiums … in the forward book, will be vital for the HECM program to continue to serve its mission.”
Montgomery is the only person to have served as FHA Commissioner twice under three presidents. Becker served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary and Chief Risk Officer for FHA. Oppenheimer served as a Senior Advisor to the Commissioner of FHA.
In their recent article for Reverse Mortgage Daily, Gate House Partners Keith Becker, Dror Oppenheimer, and Michael Marshall discuss the pressures in the housing finance market relative to reverse or home equity conversion mortgages (HECMs), suggesting action is needed to avoid further failures of Ginnie Mae HECM servicers and issuers.
If reverse servicers and “issuers” are a liquidity lifeline soon, the authors opined, “there could be additional failures, with Ginnie Mae and possibly, taxpayers holding the bag. Further harm can be avoided if Ginnie Mae provides support and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) makes some critical changes to its HECM rulebook.”
Gate House illuminates the challengers facing HECM servicers and issuers as a result of both the rapidly rising interest rate environment and esoteric HUD policies that differ from the GSEs, for example, the fact that Ginnie Mae issuers are required to fund the buyout of “due and payable” loans, often for a period of two to three years, and advance tax and insurance payments when the loans are bought out of pools.
Gate House Vice Chairman Hunter Kurtz joined @ConsultQuadel President and @Forbes_Books contributor Katie Goar for her podcast series “Change Makers with Katie Goar, Finding the right solutions for the affordable housing community” to share his insights on affordable housing through the lens of his experience in public housing and community development. Based on his experience as former HUD Public & Indian Housing Assistant Secretary, his career serving in other significant roles at HUD and Michigan state government in Detroit, and his current work with Gate House Strategies, in Part 1 of the series, Hunter discusses his career path in affordable housing, specific challenges and solutions to solving current supply constraints in affordable housing including through programs like “Faircloth to RAD” (the Rental Assistance Demonstration program), the importance of graduating renters on public assistance into market rate units, combatting veteran homelessness through programs like the HUD-VASH program, and what it will take generally to improve the shortage of affordable housing in America.
In Part 2 of the series, Hunter discusses the work of Gate House’s new subsidiary, Gate House Digital, including our colleague Dain Ehring’s perspective on the emergence of Artificial Intelligence in mortgage lending, the receipt of the “Sammies Award” by his former HUD colleague’s for their mutual work preventing homelessness of foster youth aging out of the program, his work with public housing authorities and the success of PHAs during the height of the Covid pandemic, and being part of “the rebirth of a great American city,” Detroit, where he resides today.
Gate House Vice Chairman Hunter Kurtz, when he served as Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing (PIH) at HUD, had led a team of staff who were determined to address a critical challenge for a vulnerable population in America, our nation’s youth who age out of foster care and are at risk of homelessness.
The HUD PIH team designed a new program, the Foster Youth to Independence Initiative (“FYI Initiative”) which now provides rental assistance and other supportive services to these individuals.
In his recent article for HousingWire, Kurtz congratulates his former colleagues for receiving the prestigious “Sammies” Award in recognition of their innovative approach and execution of the FYI Initiative.
Kurtz applauds the work of his former colleagues as well as the many families of the Foster Youth program who volunteer to make a tremendous difference in the lives of at-risk youth. They are “un-sung heroes” in our national life, Kurtz says.
The FYI Initiative has now issued over 1,000 housing choice vouchers for former foster youth. Without support, an estimated 25% of youth aging out of foster care experience homelessness within four years.
In their recent article for Reverse Mortgage Daily, Gate House Founding Partners Brian Montgomery, Keith Becker and Dror Oppenheimer discuss the implications of the first positive capital ratio for the HECM program in six years.
The Gate House team, who worked together at the Federal Housing Administration managing the HECM program, provided their unique perspective and explained that important policy changes, and most certainly strong home price appreciation, have contributed to the substantial improvement in the HECM capital ratio.
Nevertheless, they argued, the results do not “provide a reason for complacency or assurance of future (positive) results” and therefore continued vigilance to ensure the program “is not continuously subsidized by the premiums … in the forward book, will be vital for the HECM program to continue to serve its mission.”
Montgomery is the only person to have served as FHA Commissioner twice under three presidents. Becker served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary and Chief Risk Officer for FHA. Oppenheimer served as a Senior Advisor to the Commissioner of FHA.
Gate House Chairman Brian Montgomery and CEO Keith Becker recently opined in the M Report on the favorable condition of the FHA Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund.
In their article, Montgomery and Becker argue that FHA must be prepared to weather adverse events in the future similar to the wake of the Financial Crisis in 2008 or the COVID-19 pandemic. As pressure mounts to reduce mortgage insurance premiums (MIP), continued commitment to FHA’s countercyclical role would dictate caution. FHA must work, they wrote, “to put itself in a position to best serve low- to moderate-income borrowers who will be most affected should private markets constrict (which history has shown sometimes do).”
In urging caution on mortgage insurance premiums, they cite the Annual Report’s acknowledgment that the assumptions underlying the financial position of the fund can “change materially and quickly with changes in both actual and projected home values.”
Montgomery and Becker caution that unintended effects of MIP changes could occur, and FHA would be wise to keep available “all options that help to expand opportunities for low- to moderate-income homebuyers by deploying some of the excess capital into new programs, products, or underwriting policies.”