[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 65 (Friday, April 3, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 18962-18976]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-07033]


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FEDERAL HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY

[No. 2020-N-8]


Proposed Collection; Comment Request

AGENCY: Federal Housing Finance Agency.

ACTION: National Survey of Mortgage Originations--30-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 
``National Survey of Mortgage Originations'' (NSMO), which has been 
assigned control number 2590-0012 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 April 30, 2020.

DATES: Interested persons may submit comments on or before May 4, 2020.

ADDRESSES: Submit comments to the Office of Information and Regulatory 
Affairs of the Office of Management and Budget, Attention: Desk Officer 
for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Washington, DC 20503, Fax: 
(202) 395-3047, Email: [email protected]. Please also submit 
comments to FHFA, identified by ``Proposed Collection; Comment Request: 
`National Survey of Mortgage Originations, (No. 2020-N-8)' '' 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: ``National Survey of Mortgage 
Originations, (No. 2020-N-8).''
    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

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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 Deaf 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 consists of 96 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 (in English only) or electronically 
online (in either English or Spanish). 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 survey questionnaire sent out in the first quarter of 2020 appears 
at the end of this notice.\1\
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    \1\ In addition, 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.
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    The NSMO 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.\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 
otherwise unavailable residential mortgage market information and to 
make that information available to the public in a timely fashion.
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    \2\ 12 U.S.C. 4544(c).
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    As a means of fulfilling those and other statutory requirements, as 
well as to support policymaking and research regarding the residential 
mortgage markets, FHFA and CFPB jointly established the NMDB 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 NSMO; and (3) the American Survey of Mortgage 
Borrowers (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 the three national credit 
repositories. A random 1-in-20 sample of mortgages newly reported to 
Experian is added each quarter.
    The NMDB draws additional 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 also obtains data from the ASMB, which 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.\3\
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    \3\ OMB has assigned the ASMB control no. 2590-0015, which 
expired on July 31, 2019.
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    While the ASMB focuses on borrowers' experience with maintaining 
existing mortgages, the NSMO solicits information on newly-originated 
mortgages and the borrowers' experiences with the mortgage origination 
process. It was developed to complement the NMDB by providing critical 
and timely information--not available from existing sources--on 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. In particular, 
the survey questionnaire is designed to elicit directly from mortgage 
borrowers information on the characteristics of the borrowers and on 
their experiences in finding and obtaining a mortgage loan, including: 
Their mortgage shopping behavior; their mortgage closing experiences; 
their expectations regarding house price appreciation; and critical 
financial and other life events affecting their households, such as 
unemployment, large medical expenses, or divorce. The survey questions 
do not focus on the terms of the borrowers' mortgage loans because 
these fields are available in the Experian data. However, the NSMO 
collects a limited amount of information on each respondent's mortgage 
to verify that the Experian records and survey responses pertain to the 
same mortgage.
    Each wave of the NSMO is sent to the primary borrowers on about 
6,000 mortgage loans, which are drawn from a simple random sample of 
the 80,000 to 100,000 newly originated mortgage loans that are added to 
the National Mortgage Database from the Experian files each quarter (at 
present, this represents an approximately 1-in-15 sample of loans added 
to the National Mortgage Database and an approximately 1-in-300 sample 
of all mortgage loan originations). By contract with FHFA, the conduct 
of the NSMO is administered through Experian, which has subcontracted 
the survey administration through a competitive process to Westat, a 
nationally-recognized survey vendor.\4\ Westat also carries out the 
pre-testing of the survey materials.
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    \4\ The Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. 1681 et seq., 
requires that the survey process, because it utilizes borrower names 
and addresses drawn from credit reporting agency records, must be 
administered through Experian in order to maintain consumer privacy.
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B. Need For and Use of the Information Collection

    FHFA views the NMDB Program as a whole, including the NSMO, as the 
monthly ``survey'' that is required by

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section 1324 of the Safety and Soundness Act. Core inputs to the NMDB, 
such as a regular refresh of the Experian data, occur monthly, though 
NSMO itself does not. In combination with the other information in the 
NMDB, the information obtained through the NSMO is used 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, as well 
as for research and analysis by FHFA and CFPB in support of their 
regulatory and supervisory responsibilities related to the residential 
mortgage markets. The NSMO is especially critical in ensuring that the 
NMDB contains uniquely comprehensive information on the range of 
nontraditional and subprime mortgage products being offered, the 
methods by which these mortgages are being marketed and the 
characteristics--and particularly the creditworthiness--of borrowers 
for these types of loans. Datasets collected through the NSMO for 
public use are available online.\5\ The information provides a resource 
for research and analysis by federal agencies, by Fannie Mae and 
Freddie Mac, and by academics and other interested parties outside of 
the government.
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    \5\ NSMO data can be accessed at: https://www.fhfa.gov/nsmodata.
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    FHFA is also seeking OMB approval to continue to conduct cognitive 
pre-testing of the survey materials. The Agency uses information 
collected through that process 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 the Agency decide on 
how best to organize and format the survey questionnaires.
    The OMB control number for this information collection is 2590-
0012. The current clearance for the information collection expires on 
April 30, 2020.

C. Burden Estimate

    FHFA has analyzed the hour burden on members of the public 
associated with: (1) Conducting the survey (12,000 hours); and (2) 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:

(1) 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 20 to 30 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).

(2) 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).

D. Comment Request

    In accordance with the requirements of 5 CFR 1320.8(d), FHFA 
published an initial notice and request for public comments regarding 
this information collection in the Federal Register on December 10, 
2019.\6\ The 60-day comment period closed on February 10, 2020. FHFA 
received no comments.
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    \6\ See 84 FR 67447 (Dec. 10, 2019).
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    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.

Robert Winkler,
Chief Information Officer, Federal Housing Finance Agency.
BILLING CODE 8070-01-P

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[FR Doc. 2020-07033 Filed 4-2-20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 8070-01-C