The summer is officially over. Pools are closed, children are back in school, and Congress is back in session. It seems like an ideal time to catch everyone up on housing events in August, as well as look ahead to some important events in housing in the coming weeks.

"If we sharpen our pencils and focus on how better to lend to young minority households, we will successfully provide the American dream to the next generation."

First, there were a number of conferences in early August, essentially closing the summer season. The Western States Loan Servicing Conference, organized by the California Association of Realtors, was a great event, especially for me because I had the luxury of speaking for 90 minutes! Wait, an economist’s update on the overall economy and housing market for an hour and a half? Scary thought, isn’t it. I think, or at least hope, everyone enjoyed it. You can see the presentation here.

Soon after the Western States Loan Servicing Conference was The Housing Renaissance, a gathering of leading real estate agents, mortgage lenders, secondary market participants, policy makers, academics and government officials. My presentation explored and explained how demographic trends over the next 20 years will shape housing demand and homeownership. The bottom line…If we sharpen our pencils and focus on how better to lend to young minority households, we will successfully provide the American dream to the next generation.

Following on my theme from The Housing Renaissance, I also spoke at the Mortgage Collaborative Summer Conference. This event focused heavily on the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population, Hispanics, and how to better serve this community. We delved into critical topics, including increasing the opportunity for homeownership by improving access to credit, improving the understanding of the sourcing of down payments, and utilizing non-traditional forms of credit scoring. If you are interested, my presentation and others from the conference are available here.

Now that September is upon us, the biggest event for housing this month won’t be news from the housing market itself, but whether or not the Fed chooses to raise rates at it’s September 16-17 meeting. I’ll have more on that in another post early next week! Of course, the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule takes effect in early October, and later this year, there is a possibility that the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) will raise the conforming loan limit for the first time since 2006. That’s right, almost 10 years ago! Stay tuned to this site for more on these important housing events, as well as other posts on homeownership and economic mobility in the coming months.

If you are interested in seeing the Western States Loan Servicing conference presentation, click the download link below.