[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 122 (Tuesday, June 25, 2024)] [Notices] [Pages 53088-53102] From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] [FR Doc No: 2024-13859] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FEDERAL HOUSING FINANCE AGENCY [No. 2024-N-7] Proposed Collection; Comment Request AGENCY: Federal Housing Finance Agency. ACTION: 30-Day notice of submission of information collection for approval from the Office of Management and Budget. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: In accordance with the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA, or Agency) is seeking public comment 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 July 31, 2025. DATES: Interested persons may submit comments on or before July 25, 2024. 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. 2024-N-7)' '' 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-7).'' 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 on the FHFA public website at http://www.fhfa.gov, except as described below. Commenters should submit only information that the commenter wishes to make available publicly. FHFA may post only a single representative example of identical or substantially identical comments, and in such cases will generally identify the number of identical or substantially identical comments represented by the posted example. FHFA may, in its discretion, redact or refrain from posting all or any portion of any comment that contains content that is obscene, vulgar, profane, or threatens harm. All comments, including those that are redacted or not posted, will be retained in their original form in FHFA's internal file and considered as required by all applicable laws. Commenters that would like FHFA to consider any portion of their comment exempt from disclosure on the basis that it contains trade secrets, or financial, confidential or proprietary data or information, should follow the procedures in section IV.D. of FHFA's Policy on Communications with Outside Parties in Connection with FHFA Rulemakings, see https://www.fhfa.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Ex-Parte-Communications-Public-Policy_3-5-19.pdf. FHFA cannot guarantee that such data or information, or the identity of the commenter, will remain confidential if disclosure is sought pursuant to an applicable statute or regulation. See 12 CFR 1202.8, 12 CFR 1214.2. and https://www.fhfa.gov/about/foia-reference-guide for additional information. 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 mortgage loan secured by single-family residential property. 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. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ 12 U.S.C. 4544(c). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 [[Page 53089]] 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\ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \2\ OMB has cleared the NSMO under the PRA and assigned it control no. 2590-0012, which expires on June 30, 2026. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 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: 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 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 In accordance with the requirements of 5 CFR 1320.8(d), FHFA published an [[Page 53090]] initial notice and request for public comments regarding this information collection in the Federal Register on February 28, 2024.\3\ The 60-day comment period closed on April 29, 2024. FHFA received no comments. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \3\ See 89 FR 14650 (Feb. 28, 2024). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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