[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 177 (Tuesday, September 13, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 62889-62904]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-21983]


=======================================================================
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

FEDERAL HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY

[No. 2016-N-06]


Proposed Collection; Comment Request

AGENCY: Federal Housing Finance Agency.

ACTION: 60-day notice of submission of information collection for 
approval from Office of Management and Budget.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: In accordance with the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction 
Act of 1995, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA or the Agency) is 
seeking public comments concerning the currently-approved information 
collection known as the ``National Survey of Mortgage Originations'' 
(NSMO), which has been assigned control number 2590-0012 by the Office 
of Management and Budget (OMB) (the collection was previously known as 
the ``National Survey of Mortgage Borrowers''). FHFA intends to submit 
the information collection to OMB for review and approval of a three-
year extension of the control number, which is due to expire on 
December 31, 2016.

DATES: Interested persons may submit comments on or before November 14, 
2016.

ADDRESSES: Submit comments to FHFA, identified by ``Proposed 
Collection; Comment Request: `National Survey of Mortgage Originations, 
(No. 2016-N-06)' '' by any of the following methods:
     Agency Web site: www.fhfa.gov/open-for-comment-or-input.
     Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. 
Follow the instructions for submitting comments. If you submit your 
comment to the Federal eRulemaking Portal, please also send it by email 
to FHFA at [email protected] to ensure timely receipt by the agency.
     Mail/Hand Delivery: Federal Housing Finance Agency, Eighth 
Floor, 400 Seventh Street SW., Washington, DC 20219, ATTENTION: 
Proposed Collection; Comment Request: ``National Survey of Mortgage 
Originations, (No. 2016-N-06).''
    We will post all public comments we receive without change, 
including any personal information you provide, such as your name and 
address, email address, and telephone number, on the FHFA Web site at 
http://www.fhfa.gov. In addition, copies of all comments received will 
be available for examination by the public on business days between the 
hours of 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, 
Eighth Floor, 400 Seventh Street SW., Washington, DC 20219. To make an 
appointment to inspect comments, please call the Office of General 
Counsel at (202) 649-3804.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Forrest Pafenberg, Supervisory 
Economist, Office of the Chief Operating Officer, by email at 
[email protected] or by telephone at (202) 649-3129; or Eric 
Raudenbush, Associate General Counsel, by email at 
[email protected] or by telephone at (202) 649-3084, (these are 
not toll-free numbers), Federal Housing Finance Agency, 400 Seventh 
Street SW., Washington, DC 20219. The Telecommunications Device for the 
Hearing Impaired is (800) 877-8339.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 

A. Need For and Use of the Information Collection

    The NSMO is a recurring quarterly survey of individuals who have 
recently obtained a loan secured by a first mortgage on single-family 
residential property. The survey questionnaire is sent to a 
representative sample of approximately 6,000 recent mortgage borrowers 
each calendar quarter and typically consists of between 90 and 95 
multiple choice and short answer questions designed to obtain 
information about borrowers' experiences in choosing and in taking out 
a mortgage. The questionnaire may be completed either on paper or 
electronically online, where it is available in both English and 
Spanish. A copy of the most recent NSMO questionnaire appears at the 
end of this document.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \1\ Fully formatted copies of the questionnaire in both English 
and Spanish can be accessed online at: http://www.fhfa.gov/Homeownersbuyer/Pages/National-Survey-of-Mortgage-Originations.aspx.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    The NSMO is one component of a larger project, known as the 
``National Mortgage Database'' (NMDB) Project, which is a multi-year 
joint effort of FHFA and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau 
(CFPB) (although the NSMO is sponsored only by FHFA). The NMDB Project 
was created, in part, to satisfy the Congressionally-mandated 
requirements of section 1324(c) of the Federal Housing Enterprises 
Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992, as amended by the Housing 
and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (Safety and Soundness Act).\2\ 
Section 1324(c) requires that FHFA conduct a monthly survey to collect 
data on the characteristics of individual prime and subprime mortgages, 
and on the borrowers and properties associated with those mortgages, in 
order to enable it to prepare a detailed annual report on the mortgage 
market activities of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie 
Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) for 
review by the appropriate Congressional oversight committees. Section 
1324(c) also authorizes and requires FHFA to compile a database of 
timely and otherwise unavailable residential mortgage market 
information to be made available to the public.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \2\ 12 U.S.C. 4544(c).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    In order to fulfill those and other statutory mandates, as well as 
to

[[Page 62890]]

support policymaking and research efforts, FHFA and CFPB committed in 
July 2012 to fund, build and manage the NMDB Project. The core data in 
the NMDB are drawn from a random 1-in-20 sample of all closed-end 
first-lien mortgages outstanding at any time between January 1998 and 
the present in the files of Experian, one of the three national credit 
repositories. A random 1-in-20 sample of mortgages newly reported to 
Experian is added to the NMDB each quarter. The NMDB also draws 
information on mortgages in the NMDB datasets from other existing 
sources, including the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) database 
that is maintained by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination 
Council (FFIEC), property valuation models, data files maintained by 
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and by federal agencies, and the NSMO and 
other surveys.\3\ When fully complete, the NMDB will be a de-identified 
loan-level database of closed-end first-lien residential mortgages 
that: Is representative of the market as a whole; contains detailed, 
loan-level information on the terms and performance of mortgages, as 
well as characteristics of the associated borrowers and properties; is 
continually updated; has an historical component dating back to 1998; 
and provides a sampling frame for surveys to collect additional 
information.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \3\ In addition to the NSMO, FHFA has recently begun to collect 
data through a new survey called the American Survey of Mortgage 
Borrowers (ASMB). While the NSMO solicits information about the 
experiences of borrowers who have recently obtained a mortgage, the 
ASMB solicits information on borrowers' experience with maintaining 
their existing mortgages. OMB has cleared the ASMB under the PRA and 
assigned it control no. 2590-0015, which expires on July 31, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    FHFA views the NMDB Project as a whole, including the NSMO, as the 
monthly ``survey'' required by section 1324(c) of the Safety and 
Soundness Act. Core inputs to the NMDB, such as a regular refresh of 
the credit repository data, occur monthly, though NSMO itself does not. 
In combination with the other information in the NMDB, the information 
obtained through the NSMO is also used: (1) To prepare the report to 
Congress on the mortgage market activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie 
Mac that FHFA is required to submit under section 1324(c); (2) for 
research and analysis to support policymaking by FHFA and other federal 
regulators; and (3) to provide a resource for research and analysis by 
academics and other interested parties outside of the government. 
Generally, the information collected will enable regulators and other 
interested parties to more effectively monitor emerging trends in the 
mortgage origination process throughout the United States and will 
allow them to determine more quickly and accurately when the mortgage 
origination process is changing in a way that is unfavorable to 
borrowers and consumers.
    In particular, the NSMO provides timely information on newly-
originated mortgages and those borrowing that is not available from 
existing sources, including: The range of nontraditional and subprime 
mortgage products being offered, the methods by which these mortgages 
are being marketed, and the characteristics of borrowers for these 
types of loans. The survey is critical to ensuring that the NMDB 
contains complete and timely information on the characteristics of 
individual subprime and nontraditional mortgages and on the 
characteristics of borrowers on such mortgages, including information 
on the creditworthiness of those borrowers and information sufficient 
to determine whether those borrowers would have qualified for prime 
lending. The NSMO questionnaire is designed to elicit this information 
directly from borrowers, who are likely to be the most reliable and 
accessible--and, in some cases, the only--source for this information. 
The questionnaire focuses on topics such as mortgage shopping behavior, 
mortgage closing experiences, and other information that cannot be 
obtained from any other source, such as expectations regarding house 
price appreciation, critical household financial events, and life 
events such as unemployment, large medical expenses, or divorce. In 
general, borrowers are not asked to provide information about mortgage 
terms in the questionnaire since these fields are available in the 
Experian data. However, the survey collects a limited amount of 
information on each respondent's mortgage to verify that the credit 
repository records and survey responses pertain to the same mortgage.
    FHFA is also seeking clearance to pre-test the survey questionnaire 
and related materials from time to time through the use of cognitive 
testing. FHFA will use information collected through the cognitive 
testing to assist in drafting and modifying the survey questions and 
instructions, as well as the related communications, to read in the way 
that will be most readily understood by the survey respondents and that 
will be most likely to elicit usable responses. Such information will 
also be used help the Agency decide on how best to organize and format 
the survey questionnaires.
    The OMB control number for the information collection is 2590-0012. 
The current clearance for the information collection expires on 
December 31, 2016.

B. Burden Estimate

    FHFA has analyzed the hour burden on members of the public 
associated with conducting the survey (12,000 hours) and with pre-
testing the survey materials (30 hours) and estimates the total annual 
hour burden imposed on the public by this information collection to be 
12,030 hours. The estimate for each phase of the collection was 
calculated as follows:

I. Conducting the Survey

    FHFA estimates that the NSMO questionnaire will be sent to 24,000 
recipients annually (6,000 recipients per quarterly survey x 4 calendar 
quarters). Although, based on historical experience, the Agency expects 
that only 30 to 35 percent of those surveys will be returned, it has 
assumed that all of the surveys will be returned for purposes of this 
burden calculation. Based on the reported experience of respondents to 
prior NSMO questionnaires, FHFA estimates that it will take each 
respondent 30 minutes to complete the survey, including the gathering 
of necessary materials to respond to the questions. This results in a 
total annual burden estimate of 12,000 hours for the survey phase of 
this collection (24,000 respondents x 30 minutes per respondent = 
12,000 hours annually).

II. Pre-Testing the Materials

    FHFA estimates that it will pre-test the survey materials with 30 
cognitive testing participants annually. The estimated participation 
time for each participant is one hour, resulting in a total annual 
burden estimate of 30 hours for the pre-testing phase of the collection 
(30 participants x 1 hour per participant = 30 hours annually).

C. Comment Request

    FHFA requests written comments on the following: (1) Whether the 
collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of 
FHFA functions, including whether the information has practical 
utility; (2) The accuracy of FHFA's estimates of the burdens of the 
collection of information; (3) Ways to enhance the quality, utility, 
and clarity of the information collected; and (4) Ways to minimize the 
burden of the collection of information on survey respondents, 
including through the use of automated collection techniques or other 
forms of information technology.


[[Page 62891]]


    Dated: September 7, 2016.
Kevin Winkler,
Chief Information Officer, Federal Housing Finance Agency.
BILLING CODE 8070-01-P

[[Page 62892]]

[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN13SE16.000


[[Page 62893]]


[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN13SE16.001


[[Page 62894]]


[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN13SE16.002


[[Page 62895]]


[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN13SE16.003


[[Page 62896]]


[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN13SE16.004


[[Page 62897]]


[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN13SE16.005


[[Page 62898]]


[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN13SE16.006


[[Page 62899]]


[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN13SE16.007


[[Page 62900]]


[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN13SE16.008


[[Page 62901]]


[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN13SE16.009


[[Page 62902]]


[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN13SE16.010


[[Page 62903]]


[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TN13SE16.011


[[Page 62904]]


[FR Doc. 2016-21983 Filed 9-12-16; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 8070-01-C