[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 148 (Friday, July 31, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 46104-46119]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-16659]


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FEDERAL HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY

[No. 2020-N-14]


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 for Emergency 
Clearance 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

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Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is seeking public comments 
concerning an information collection known as the ``American Survey of 
Mortgage Borrowers (ASMB),'' 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 an 
emergency six month renewal of the control number, which expired on 
July 31, 2019.

DATES: Interested persons may submit comments on or before August 31, 
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: 
`American Survey of Mortgage Borrowers, (No. 2020-N-14)' '' 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. 2020-N-14).'' Please note that all mail sent to FHFA via U.S. Mail 
is routed through a national irradiation facility, a process that may 
delay delivery by approximately two weeks. For any time-sensitive 
correspondence, please plan accordingly.
    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 
Angela Supervielle, Counsel, [email protected], (202) 649-
3973, (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. Background

    The ASMB is a component of the ``National Mortgage Database'' 
(NMDB[supreg]) Program, which is a joint effort of FHFA and the 
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) (jointly, ``the 
agencies''). 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 otherwise 
unavailable residential mortgage market information and to make that 
information available to the public in a timely fashion.
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    \1\ 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 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 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 each quarter.
    The NMDB draws additional information on mortgages in the NMDB 
datasets from other existing sources, including Home Mortgage 
Disclosure Act (HMDA) data that are maintained by the Federal Financial 
Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), property valuation models, 
and administrative data files maintained by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac 
and by federal agencies. FHFA also obtains data from the two surveys 
conducted as part of the project--the NSMO and the ASMB. The NSMO is a 
quarterly survey that provides critical and timely information on 
newly-originated mortgages and those borrowing that are not available 
from other 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.\2\
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    \2\ OMB has cleared the NSMO under the PRA and assigned it 
control no. 2590-0012, which expires on June 30, 2023.
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    While the NSMO provides information on newly-originated mortgages, 
the ASMB focuses on borrowers' experience with maintaining their 
existing mortgages. This includes 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. In short, the ASMB is 
designed to collect information necessary to allow empirical analysis 
of two questions of vital importance to residential mortgage market 
policymakers and stakeholders: (1) What factors explain or predict 
which borrowers will become delinquent on their mortgages?; and (2) 
Once a borrower becomes delinquent, what factors explain or predict 
whether the borrower will (a) become current on the loan, (b) decide 
they cannot afford the mortgage and sell the property or modify the 
mortgage, or (c) remain delinquent and enter into foreclosure?
    From 2016 through 2018, the ASMB questionnaire was sent once 
annually to a stratified random sample of 10,000 borrowers with 
mortgages in the NMDB. In 2018, the ASMB had an 18.7 percent overall 
response rate, which yielded 1,793 survey responses. FHFA did not 
undertake the ASMB during 2019, but

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intends to send out the survey again in the Fall of 2020.\3\ The 2018 
and 2020 survey questionnaires are substantially similar, except in 
that a number of questions specifically relating to the COVID-19 
pandemic and its effects have been added to the 2020 questionnaire. 
Eight new questions have been added regarding expanded mortgage payment 
forbearance options that may have been offered to borrowers. Two other 
new questions address the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on borrowers' 
homeownership and employment. Because of the elimination of several 
questions, as well as the combination of some other questions, the 
total number of questions has actually decreased from 93 on the 2018 
survey questionnaire to 92 on the 2020 questionnaire.
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    \3\ A copy of the draft 2020 survey questionnaire appears at the 
end of this notice.
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    Each of the 92 questions on the 2020 survey questionnaire is 
designed to elicit one or more of five different categories of 
information that are not available in the administrative data and that 
are needed either to properly analyze the issues described above or to 
validate the survey responses. These categories are: (1) Information 
needed to validate that the survey reached the correct borrower and 
that the borrower is providing answers about the correct loan; (2) 
information about the mortgage loan that does not exist in sufficient 
detail in the administrative data; (3) information about the borrower's 
economic circumstances that does not exist, or exists in insufficient 
detail, in the administrative data; (4) information about the 
borrower's attitudes regarding his or her mortgage, property, 
interactions with lenders and servicers, and life circumstances; and 
(5) information needed to determine the ultimate outcome of the 
borrower's delinquency and the interim steps that led to that outcome.

B. Need For and Use of the Information Collection

    FHFA views the NMDB Program as a whole, including the ASMB, 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 the actual surveys 
conducted under the NMDB Project do not. The information collected 
through the ASMB is 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 assists 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 may 
also be used for research and analysis by CFPB and other federal 
agencies that have regulatory and supervisory responsibilities and 
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 discussed above, the agencies have added to the 2020 ASMB survey 
questionnaire a number of questions relating to the effect of the 
COVID-19 pandemic on home mortgage borrowers. FHFA and CFPB are 
actively engaged in developing policies in response to the COVID-19 
pandemic and in support of the recently-enacted CARES Act,\4\ which 
addresses various ramifications of the pandemic, including its effects 
on the residential mortgage market. It is critical for both agencies to 
have timely access to this information to assist in evidenced-based 
policymaking in these areas.
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    \4\ Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, Public 
Law 116-136 (2020).
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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.

C. Reason for Emergency Clearance Request

    In accordance with the requirements of 5 CFR 1320.8(d), FHFA 
published a request for public comments regarding this information 
collection in the Federal Register on May 29, 2019, prior to the 
expiration of the control number.\5\ The 60-day comment period closed 
on July 29, 2019. FHFA received no comments.
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    \5\ See 84 FR 24783 (May 29, 2019).
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    After publication of that 60-day Notice, FHFA and CFPB decided not 
to conduct the survey in 2019 and, instead, to wait until 2020 to 
conduct the next wave. In light of that decision, FHFA decided to allow 
the PRA clearance for the ASMB to expire on July 31, 2019 and to 
continue with the clearance process in early 2020. At the time the 
Agency was preparing to publish the 30-day PRA Notice in the Spring of 
2020, the wide effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the nation's mortgage 
markets and overall economy was becoming evident, and the agencies 
decided to revise the 2020 survey questionnaire to add the questions 
related to COVID-19 that are discussed above. The addition of those 
questions has made the survey questionnaire materially different from 
the version that was published with the 60-day Notice in May 2019 and 
OMB has informed FHFA that it cannot move forward with the normal 
clearance process without first publishing a new 60-day Notice 
attaching the revised survey.
    If FHFA were to begin the clearance process anew, it is unlikely 
that it will have received OMB approval for the revised collection in 
time to send out the survey in the fall of 2020 as is needed to provide 
the agencies with timely and critical information on the effects of the 
pandemic on the residential mortgage market. Therefore, with the 
approval of OMB, FHFA is moving forward with this 30-day notice, after 
which it will request an emergency six-month clearance for this 
collection to facilitate the rapid collection of the pandemic-related 
information. At the appropriate time, FHFA will then initiate a full 
clearance process to cover future waves of the survey.

D. Burden Estimate

    This information collection consists of two components: (1) The 
survey; and (2) the pre-testing of the survey questionnaire and related 
materials through the use of focus groups. FHFA conducted the ASMB 
annually from 2016 through 2018, but did not conduct the survey in 
2019. The Agency currently plans to conduct the survey next in the Fall 
of 2020. The decision as to whether to conduct the survey on an annual 
or a biennial basis going forward will depend upon the availability of 
funding and on the agencies' assessments as to the need for the type of 
data collected through the survey. In order to preserve the ability to 
conduct the survey annually, FHFA assumes, for purposes of these burden 
estimates, that it will conduct the survey once annually over the next

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three years. The estimates assume that the Agency 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:

(1) 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).

(2) 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).

E. 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.

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

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[FR Doc. 2020-16659 Filed 7-30-20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 8070-01-C