[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 103 (Wednesday, May 29, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Pages 24783-24796]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-11182]


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FEDERAL HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY

[No. 2019-N-04]


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.

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SUMMARY: In accordance with the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction 
Act of 1995 (PRA), the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is seeking 
public comments concerning an information collection known as the 
``American Survey of Mortgage Borrowers,'' which has been assigned 
control number 2590-0015 by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). 
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 July 31, 2019.

DATES: Interested persons may submit comments on or before July 29, 
2019.

ADDRESSES: Submit comments to FHFA, identified by ``Proposed 
Collection; Comment Request: `American Survey of Mortgage Borrowers, 
(No. 2019-N-04)''' by any of the following methods:
     Agency Website: 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: ``American Survey of Mortgage Borrowers, 
(No. 2019-N-04)''.
    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 website at 
http://www.fhfa.gov. In addition, copies of all comments received will 
be available for examination by the public through the electronic 
comment docket for this PRA Notice also located on the FHFA website.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Saty Patrabansh, Manager, National 
Mortgage Database Program, [email protected], (202) 649-3213; or 
Eric Raudenbush, Associate General Counsel, [email protected], 
(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

    FHFA is seeking OMB clearance under the PRA for a collection of 
information known as the ``American Survey of Mortgage Borrowers'' 
(ASMB). The ASMB is an annual, voluntary survey of individuals who 
currently have a first mortgage loan secured by single-family 
residential property. The 2018 survey questionnaire consisted of 93 
questions designed to learn directly from mortgage borrowers about 
their mortgage experience, any challenges they may have had in 
maintaining their mortgage and, where applicable, in terminating a 
mortgage. It requested specific information on: the mortgage; the 
mortgaged property; the borrower's experience with the loan servicer; 
and the borrower's financial resources and financial knowledge. FHFA is 
also seeking clearance to pretest future iterations of the survey 
questionnaire and related materials from time to time through the use 
of focus groups. A copy of the 2018 survey questionnaire appears at the 
end of this notice.
    The ASMB is a component of the ``National Mortgage Database'' 
(NMDB) Program, which is a joint effort of FHFA and the Consumer 
Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The NMDB Program is designed to 
satisfy the Congressionally-mandated requirements of section 1324(c) of 
the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act.\1\ 
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.
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    \1\ 12 U.S.C. 4544(c).
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    As a means of fulfilling these and other statutory requirements, as 
well as to support policymaking and research regarding the residential 
mortgage markets, FHFA and CFPB jointly established the National 
Mortgage Database Program in 2012. The Program is designed to provide 
comprehensive information about the U.S. mortgage market and has three 
primary components: (1) The NMDB; (2) the quarterly National Survey of 
Mortgage Originations (NSMO); and (3) the ASMB.
    The NMDB is a de-identified loan-level database of closed-end 
first-lien residential mortgage loans that is representative of the 
market as a whole, contains detailed loan-level information on the 
terms and performance of the mortgages and the 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. The core data in the 
NMDB are drawn from a random 1-in-20 sample of all closed-end first-
lien mortgage files outstanding at any time between January 1998 and 
the present in the files of Experian, one of

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the three national credit repositories. A random 1-in-20 sample of 
mortgages newly reported to Experian is added each quarter.
    The NMDB also draws information on mortgages in the NMDB datasets 
from other existing sources, including the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act 
(HMDA) data that are maintained by the Federal Financial Institutions 
Examination Council (FFIEC), property valuation models, and data files 
maintained by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and by federal agencies. FHFA 
obtains additional data from the quarterly NSMO, which provides 
critical and timely information on newly-originated mortgages and those 
borrowing that are not available from any existing source, 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.\2\
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    \2\ OMB has cleared the NSMO under the PRA and assigned it 
control no. 2590-0012, which expires on April 30, 2020.
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    While the NSMO provides information on newly-originated mortgages, 
the ASMB solicits information on borrowers' experience with maintaining 
their existing mortgages, including their experience maintaining 
mortgages under financial stress, their experience in soliciting 
financial assistance, their success in accessing federally-sponsored 
programs designed to assist them, and, where applicable, any challenges 
they may have had in terminating a mortgage loan. This type of 
information is not available from any other source. Beginning in 2016, 
the ASMB questionnaire has been sent out annually to a stratified 
random sample of 10,000 borrowers in the NMDB. In 2018, the ASMB had an 
18.7 percent overall response rate, which yielded 1,793 survey 
responses.
    When fully processed, the information collected through the ASMB 
will be used, in combination with information obtained from existing 
sources in the NMDB, to assist FHFA in understanding how the 
performance of existing mortgages is influencing the residential 
mortgage market, what different borrower groups are discussing with 
their servicers when they are under financial stress, and consumers' 
opinions of federally-sponsored programs designed to assist them. This 
important, but otherwise unavailable, information will assist FHFA in 
the supervision of its regulated entities (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and 
the Federal Home Loan Banks) and in the development and implementation 
of appropriate and effective policies and programs. The information 
will also be used for research and analysis by CFPB and other federal 
agencies that have regulatory and supervisory responsibilities/mandates 
related to mortgage markets and to provide a resource for research and 
analysis by academics and other interested parties outside of the 
government.
    As it has done in the past, FHFA expects to continue to sponsor 
focus groups to pretest possible survey questions and revisions to the 
survey materials. Such pretesting ultimately helps to ensure that the 
survey respondents can and will answer the survey questions and will 
provide useful data on their experiences with maintaining their 
existing mortgages. FHFA uses information collected through the focus 
groups 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 is 
also used to help determine how best to organize and format the survey 
questionnaire.

B. Burden Estimate

    This information collection comprises two components: (I) The ASMB 
survey; and (II) the pre-testing of the survey questionnaire and 
related materials through the use of cognitive testing. FHFA conducted 
the survey annually from 2016 through 2018. Although the ASMB is 
nominally an annual survey, the decision as to whether the ASMB will be 
conducted in 2019 and thereafter depends upon the availability of 
funding and on assessments as to whether there is a continuing need for 
the type of data collected through the survey. For purposes of these 
burden estimates, however, FHFA assumes that it will conduct the survey 
once annually over the next three years and that it will conduct two 
rounds of pre-testing on each set of survey materials.
    FHFA has analyzed the total hour burden on members of the public 
associated with conducting the survey (5,000 hours) and with pre-
testing the survey materials (24 hours) and estimates the total annual 
hour burden imposed on the public by this information collection to be 
5,024 hours. The estimate for each phase of the collection was 
calculated as follows:

I. Conducting the Survey

    FHFA estimates that the ASMB questionnaire will be sent to 10,000 
recipients each time it is conducted. Although it expects that only 
about 1,800 of those surveys will be returned, FHFA has calculated the 
burden estimates below as if all of the surveys will be returned. Based 
on the reported experience of respondents to earlier ASMB 
questionnaires, FHFA estimates that it will take each respondent 30 
minutes to complete each survey, including the gathering of necessary 
materials to respond to the questions. This results in a total annual 
burden estimate of 5,000 hours for the survey phase of this collection 
(1 survey per year x 10,000 respondents per survey x 30 minutes per 
respondent = 5,000 hours).

II. Pre-Testing the Materials

    FHFA estimates that it will sponsor two focus groups prior to 
conducting each annual survey, with 12 participants in each focus 
group, for a total of 24 focus group participants. It estimates the 
participation time for each focus group participant to be one hour, 
resulting in a total annual burden estimate of 24 hours for the pre-
testing phase of the collection (2 focus groups per year x 12 
participants in each group x 1 hour per participant = 24 hours).

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 respondents, including 
through the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of 
information technology.

    Dated: May 23, 2019.
Kevin Winkler,
Chief Information Officer, Federal Housing Finance Agency.
BILLING CODE 8070-01-P

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[FR Doc. 2019-11182 Filed 5-28-19; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 8070-01-C