The Center for American Progress, an influential policy think-tank, has issued a new report titled “A Responsible Market for Housing Finance: A Progressive Plan to Reform the U.S. Secondary Market for Residential Mortgages.” The report proposes changes to the nation’s mortgage finance system to encourage liquidity, stability, transparency, standardization, affordability and consumer protection. The report focuses on three overarching goals:
- Preserving the availability of 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, which allow families to fix their housing costs and thus better plan for their futures in an ever more volatile economy
- Re-balancing U.S. housing policy so that private markets are the primary source of decent affordable rental housing, with public support where deep subsidy is needed
- Ensuring that a broad array of large and small mortgage lenders (such as community banks, credit unions, and Community Development Financial Institutions) have access to secondary market finance so that they can continue to provide single- and multifamily mortgage loans in every community across our country
