Speaker Pelosi’s Congress Fails on Expiration of Eviction Moratorium as Wall Street Salivates
Posted on 07/31/2021
On July 30, 2021, House Democrats, who control the majority of the House of Representatives, failed to push through a last-minute extension of the federal eviction moratorium that expires on July 31, 2021. About a dozen House Democrats opposed the extension measure. The failure to pass the eviction moratorium would have people being forced to leave their homes. A recent court ruling meant the Biden administration lacks the constitutional power to extend the moratorium and pushed responsibility to Congress. This is while Wall Street firms and asset managers have created more investment vehicles to acquire single-family housing across the United States.
U.S. President Joe Biden twitter account tweeted on July 30, 2021 at 6:54 PM, “As the eviction moratorium deadline approaches tomorrow, I call on all state and local governments to take all possible steps to immediately disburse these funds given the imminent ending of the CDC eviction moratorium.”
The House of Representatives is not expected back in until September 20, 2021.
According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, an estimated 1.75 million homeowners, roughly 3.5% of all U,S. homes, are in some sort of forbearance plan with their bank. To compare with the global financial crisis of 2008, at that time, about 10 million homeowners lost their homes to foreclosure.
Private equity firms like the Blackstone Group have made big money buying single-family homes. Blackstone was one of the first private equity firms to begin buying foreclosed homes in the wake of the financial crisis. Blackstone founded Invitation Homes in 2012. In February 2017, Blackstone took Invitation Homes public in an offering that raised US$ 1.8 billion. Invitation Homes was built into a single-family rental giant by having Invitation Homes and Starwood Waypoint Homes merge.
FHA
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) announced an extension of its moratorium on evictions for foreclosed borrowers and their occupants through September 30, 2021 and noted the expiration of the foreclosure moratorium on July 31, 2021.
