(RECAP: Meg Burns of Arlington is among 12 people named by HUD who will constitute the first-ever Housing Counseling Federal Advisory Committee (HCFAC). Established under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, this Advisory Panel will help HUD’s Office of Housing Counseling improve upon all the efforts to provide consumers with the knowledge they need to make informed and lasting housing decisions. The HCFAC will explore new opportunities to expand access to HUD housing counseling programs, develop new innovative strategies to support community-based counseling agencies, and identify methods to leverage resources to amplify the impact of federally funded housing counseling. This panel will also develop new metrics to evaluate the health and capacity of the housing counseling industry, specifically in the context of disaster recovery, and identify ways to improve the use of technology in housing counseling.)

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(RECAP: A new cohousing community will be coming to Crozet by 2018. Emerson Commons will be located on 6.1 acres along Parkview Drive off Route 240. Cohousing originated in Denmark and started to be adopted in the U.S. in the 1980s. People in a cohousing community own their own homes, but have opportunities to participate in numerous neighborhood activities and share open spaces. Peter Lazar, who is developing the community, said features of Emerson Commons could include sharing landscaping tools, such as lawnmowers, and neighborhood activities, such as potlucks, pleased hours and neighborhood breakfasts. The community will have a total of 26 residential units, with a combination of multi-family and single-family attached and detached housing.)

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(RECAP: Private mortgage insurance activity rose sharply in the second quarter, grabbing the lead in market share from the FHA for the first time since the first quarter of 2015, according to a client note from Compass Point Research & Trading. According to the note, the PMI share of the mortgage insurance market rose to 37% in the second quarter, while the FHA share of the MI market fell from 40% to 34%. This is the first time private mortgage insurance outpaced insurance written by the FHA since the first three months of 2015, during which the FHA cut its annual mortgage insurance premiums by 50 basis points, from 1.35% to 0.85%, per the direction of the Obama administration. Analysts noted that the decline in FHA insurance is “notable,” because it’s the opposite of what was expected. The decline in FHA issuance could lend more political will to cutting rates again.)

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