Neighborhood Housing Services Of America To Discontinue Operations

‘extraordinary liquidity demands’ resulting from the housing market downturn, the board of directors of Neighborhood Housing Services of America (NHSA) has authorized an orderly wind down of its affordable-housing programs. NHSA is a privately and publicly funded nonprofit secondary market for home loans to low- and moderate-income buyers. It entered the market 35 years ago. The financial demands of the current market and expected continuing challenges have contributed to NHSA's inability to secure its annual grant from NeighborWorks America. The lack of grant funding has left the organization with liquidity levels that will not allow it to continue operations, NHSA says. During the past year, NHSA has implemented a comprehensive restructuring plan, including the hiring of restructuring specialists, a significant reduction in operating expenses, the cessation of funding of its technology initiatives and changes in management and board governance. During this period, NHSA has successfully negotiated concessions in loan terms and interest rates from its lenders/investors, in anticipation of obtaining the grant funding necessary to support the continued purchase of loans for low- and moderate-income homeowners from the NeighborWorks organizations. NHSA is planning an orderly wind down of its operations over the next several months. During this period, every effort will be made to protect the interests of its lenders, other creditors, customers, employees and other stakeholders in the community lending field, the organization says. It will no longer purchase new loans, but NHSA will continue to collect payments and service existing mortgage loans until arrangements can be made to transfer these responsibilities to other parties. ‘NHSA has also served its investors by maintaining delinquencies and credit losses on its mortgage loans at levels well below national averages for similar borrowers,’ says Bruce Gottschall, chairman of the board of directors. ‘NHSA is proud of its success in meeting the needs of so many low- and moderate-income and minority citizens. It is unfortunate that circumstances require the ending of this exemplary contribution to the nation's housing needs." SOURCE: [link=http://www.nhsaonline.org]Neighborhood Housing Services of America