AHP Servicing, a specialty servicer of past due residential mortgages, has inaugurated a $50 million offering designed to help keep homeowners out of foreclosure.

AHP and other financial organizations purchases loans that have fallen behind in payments but could be restructured or settled—using crowd sourced funding. It then works with home owners so they can stay in their homes, or resolve their debt at a discount.

[caption id="attachment_7523" align="alignleft" width="150"] DeAnn O'Donovan[/caption]

"AHP empowers socially responsible investors to help financially strapped borrowers and homeowners retain their properties while offering investors a competitive preferred rate of return," said DeAnn O'Donovan, president and CEO of AHP Servicing. "We're flipping the switch on the traditional loan servicing model so that ROI is judged not just by dollars, but also by sense. We create a purpose in addition to creating a profit."

Investors can realize returns as high as 10% annually, distributed in monthly dividend payments to investors, assuming the investment is held for at least two years. If funds are withdrawn earlier than two years, returns will be lower. The aim is to return the principal within five years. So far, AHP's prior offerings have not missed a monthly distribution.

"Our offering diversifies investor returns into an asset class that is not correlated to the stock market," O'Donovan noted. "What's more, our offering is available to both accredited and non-accredited investors. We offer best efforts liquidity and seek to deliver monthly distributions with annual preferred returns up to 10%."

AHP Servicing seeks socially responsible investors who are looking for investments that make real differences in people's lives, and socially conscious investment advisors, their clients and foundations to invest in the offering.

AHP Servicing’s sister company, American Homeowner Preservation, is a crowdfunded offering with a 10-year track record of socially responsible investing that keeps financially distressed homeowners in their homes.

A home-buying platform is targeting technology-loving millennials since most start the search for a home online.

Consumers aged 36 and younger represent the biggest share of homebuyers and made up 34% of all purchases last year, according to the National Association of Realtors. As they continue to buy homes, Millennials will expect digital technology to support their house hunting efforts and decision making, especially since 99% of Millennials start their house hunt online, according to Greendoor.

"The market is becoming a buyer's market. However, from our research, we've found minimal tech tools that serve the needs of today's buyer, especially the Millennial demographic that is starting to drive much of the economy," said Bill Lyons, co-founder and chairman of Greendoor.

Greendoor will offer these kinds of homebuyers the capability to search for houses, based on the monthly payment they can afford, and the characteristics of most importance to them. The platform assumes a five percent down payment and uses an estimated interest rate to calculate the homebuyer's monthly payment including principal, interest, taxes and insurance. Or Millennials can also adjust these settings based on their own financing and the amount for which they have been pre-approved

"Also, Greendoor will offer a rebate equal to the buyer's first month's mortgage payment when they get pre-approved by Greendoor's preferred lender and choose Greendoor to represent them in the transaction," said Lyons. The company is available now to San Diego homebuyers with expansion plans already in the works.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency set the 2019 multifamily lending caps at $35 billion for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, unchanged from the 2018 caps. The caps are based on FHFA’s projections of the overall size of the 2019 multifamily originations market, which FHFA expects to be relatively flat compared to the market in 2018.  In setting the caps, FHFA also considers multifamily market estimates developed by industry participants and analysts.

As in prior years, FHFA will review its estimates of the multifamily loan origination market size on a quarterly basis, including consultation with multifamily lenders and Fannie and Freddie, and will adjust the caps if necessary.  To prevent disruption in the market, if FHFA determines that the actual size of the 2019 market is smaller than was initially projected, it will not reduce the caps.

The multifamily lending caps are to ensure provide liquidity for the multifamily market without impeding the participation of private capital. Because market support for affordable multifamily housing has historically been limited, FHFA will continue to exclude from the 2019 caps certain loans in the affordable and underserved market segments.

For 2019, FHFA is making the following changes to these excluded categories:

• Loans to finance energy or water efficiency improvements: FHFA is increasing the requirements for exclusion from the multifamily cap loans that finance energy or water efficiency improvements through Fannie Mae’s Green Rewards and Freddie Mac’s Green Up or Green Up Plus programs. To qualify for exclusion from the cap, multifamily loans that finance energy or water efficiency improvements must project at least a 30 percent reduction in whole property energy and water consumption and a minimum of 15 percent of the reduction must be in energy consumption. Also, FHFA is adding a data collection requirement for all excluded Green Rewards and Green Up or Green Up Plus loans, which requires engagement of a third-party data collection firm prior to closing.  The consumption reduction threshold ensures that the benefits from green renovations are passed through to the tenants, while the added data requirement allows FHFA to evaluate the green improvements programs. ​

• ​Loans on affordable units in cost-burdened renter markets: To address the critical shortages of affordable rental housing in some markets, FHFA has developed a data-driven approach it will follow to designate markets in which units affordable to cost-burdened renters at certain area median income levels will be excluded from the multifamily cap on a pro-rata basis. This data-driven process will ensure that exclusions from the cap are focused on markets where renters are most cost-burdened and will result in less variation in market designations over time and offer greater stability to the multifamily market.