[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 40 (Wednesday, February 28, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 14650-14664]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2024-04126]
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FEDERAL HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY
[No. 2024-N-3]
Proposed Collection; Comment Request
AGENCY: Federal Housing Finance Agency.
ACTION: 60-Day notice of submission of information collection for
approval from the 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 (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 a three-year extension of the control
number, which is due to expire on July 31, 2025.
DATES: Interested persons may submit comments on or before April 29,
2024.
ADDRESSES: Submit comments to FHFA, identified by ``Proposed
Collection; Comment Request: `American Survey of Mortgage Borrowers,
(No. 2024-N-4)' '' by any of the following methods:
Agency Website: www.fhfa.gov/open-for-comment-or-input.
Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://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, Fourth
Floor, 400 Seventh Street SW, Washington, DC 20219, ATTENTION: Proposed
Collection; Comment Request: ``American Survey of Mortgage Borrowers,
(No. 2024-N-4).'' 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.
FHFA will post all public comments received without change,
including any personal information you provide, such as your name and
address, email address, and telephone number, on the FHFA website at
https://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: Jonathan Spader, Manager, National
Mortgage Database Program, [email protected], (202) 649-3213; or
Angela Supervielle, Senior Counsel, [email protected], (202)
649-3973, (these are not toll-free numbers), Federal Housing Finance
Agency, 400 Seventh Street SW, Washington, DC 20219. For TTY/TRS users
with hearing and speech disabilities, dial 711 and ask to be connected
to any of the contact numbers above.
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, conducted annually or biennially, is a voluntary
survey of individuals who currently have a first
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mortgage loan secured by single-family residential property. The 2023
survey questionnaire consisted of 88 questions designed to learn
directly from mortgage borrowers about their perceptions and
experiences with flood risk, flood damage, and flood insurance. It
requested specific information on: the mortgage; the mortgaged
property; the borrower's expectations of flood risk; the borrower's
prior experience with flood damage, the borrower's insurance coverages,
and the borrower's demographic and household characteristics. A copy of
the 2023 survey questionnaire appears at the end of this notice. The
change of the collection's focus will result in a change in the number
of questions for 2024.
FHFA is also seeking clearance to conduct cognitive testing
interviews that pre-test iterations of the survey questionnaire and
related materials from time to time. 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 American Survey of Mortgage Borrowers 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 a
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, with a random sample of mortgages newly reported to
Experian 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 program--the NSMO and the ASMB. The NSMO is a
quarterly survey that provides critical and timely information on
newly-originated mortgages and associated borrowers 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, 2026.
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While the NSMO provides information on newly-originated mortgages,
the purpose of the ASMB is to collect voluntary feedback directly from
mortgage borrowers about their experience with their mortgage and
property. ASMB respondents are representative of the overall population
of borrowers with a mortgage loan, including those who recently took
out a loan and those who have had their loan for multiple years. The
feedback collected by the ASMB includes information about a range of
topics related to maintaining a mortgage and property, such as
borrowers' experiences with managing their mortgage, responding to
financial stressors, insuring against risks, seeking assistance from
federally-sponsored programs and other sources, and terminating a
mortgage loan.
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. FHFA did not undertake the ASMB during 2019 but
sent the survey again in the fall of 2020 with a specific focus on the
experiences of borrowers during the COVID-19 pandemic using a
stratified random sample of 10,000 borrowers. The 2020 survey was
substantially similar to the 2018 survey, except it included a number
of questions specifically relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and its
effects. The 2022 survey was similar to the 2020 survey in its focus on
how the pandemic impacted borrowers and extended the focus to the
experiences of those who used forbearance. The 2023 survey focused on
mortgage borrowers' experiences with flood risk and flood insurance. In
2023, the ASMB had a 27 percent overall response rate from its
stratified random sample of 10,000 borrowers with mortgages in the
NMDB. The 2024 ASMB survey will focus on existing borrowers'
experiences with higher mortgage rates and non-mortgage costs like
insurance and property maintenance.
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, including how existing borrowers are affected by
higher interest rates, the extent to which existing borrowers' are
experiencing higher non-mortgage costs, borrowers' understanding and
management of escrow accounts, and how these factors influence mortgage
performance and homeownership outcomes. 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
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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.
B. Burden Estimate
This information collection comprises two components: (1) the ASMB
survey; and (2) the pre-testing of future survey questionnaires and
related materials through the use of cognitive testing. FHFA conducted
the survey annually from 2016 through 2018 and again in 2020, 2022 and
2023, but did not conduct the survey in 2019 nor 2021. 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 year of
survey materials.
FHFA has analyzed the total hour burden on members of the public
associated with conducting the survey (4,200 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
4,224 hours for each annual survey. The estimate for each phase of the
collection was calculated as follows:
C. 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 20
to 30 percent 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 25
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 4,200 hours for the survey phase of this collection
(1 survey per year x 10,000 respondents per survey x 25 minutes per
respondent = 4,200 hours).
II. Pre-Testing the Materials
FHFA estimates that it will sponsor 2 rounds of 12 cognitive
interviews prior to conducting each annual survey for a total of 24
cognitive interview participants. It estimates the participation time
for each cognitive interview 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.
Shawn Bucholtz,
Chief Data Officer, Federal Housing Finance Agency.
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[FR Doc. 2024-04126 Filed 2-27-24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 8070-01-C