E8-25268. Notice of Proposed Information Collection: Comment Request Local Appeals to Single Family Mortgage Limits

AGENCY:

Office of the Assistant Secretary for Housing, HUD.

ACTION:

Notice.

SUMMARY:

The proposed information collection requirement described below will be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act. The Department is soliciting public comments on the subject proposal.

DATES:

Comments Due Date: December 22, 2008.

ADDRESSES:

Interested persons are invited to submit comments regarding this proposal. Comments should refer to the proposal by name and/or OMB Control Number and should be sent to: Lillian Deitzer, Departmental Reports Management Officer, QDAM, Department of Housing and Urban Development, 451 7th Street, SW., Washington, DC 20410; e-mail [e-mail] or telephone [phone].

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Program Contact, Director, Office of Single Family Program Development, Department of Housing and Urban Development, 451 7th Street SW., Washington, DC 20410, telephone [phone] (this is not a toll free number) for copies of the proposed forms and other available information.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

The Department is submitting the proposed information collection to OMB for review, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35, as amended).

This Notice is soliciting comments from members of the public and affected agencies concerning the proposed collection of information to: (1) Evaluate whether the proposed collection is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency, including whether the information will have practical utility; (2) Evaluate the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the proposed collection of information; (3) Enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and (4) Minimize the burden of the collection of information on those who are to respond; including the use of appropriate automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology, e.g., permitting electronic submission of responses.

This Notice also lists the following information:

Title of Proposal: Local Appeals to Single Family Mortgage Limits.

OMB Control Number, if applicable: 2502-0302.

1. Description of the need for the information and proposed use: Any interested party may submit a request for the mortgage limits to be increased in a particular area if they believe that the present limit does not accurately reflect the higher sales prices in that area. Any request for an increase must be accompanied by sufficient housing sales price data to justify higher limits. Typically, this data includes housing sales data extracted from multiple listing services (MLS) that includes all or nearly all one-family and condominium sales in the area for a specified period of time, deleting all non-arms length sales and sales involving two or more family units.

This data should be categorized as shown in the table below in a listing of all, or nearly all, of the one-family properties sold in the area for a period of time, depending on the volume of sales. HUD uses the information collected to determine whether an increase is warranted.

Sales volume	Revised data period (month)
500 or more per month	1
250 to 499 per month	2
250 or less per month	3

These requests are usually submitted by housing industry groups, such as homebuilders, realtors, and mortgage lenders. Most often, the housing sales price data is necessary to support a request for a higher mortgage limit that may be obtained from existing local industry sources, such as the real estate multiple listing services.

The request for an increase to the mortgage limit is required to obtain benefits.

Agency form numbers, if applicable: None.

Estimation of the total numbers of hours needed to prepare the information collection including number of respondents, frequency of response, and hours of response: The number of burden hours annually is 31,000. The number of respondents is 4500, the number of responses is 4500, the frequency of response is averaged one per respondent, and the burden hour per response is 7.

Status of the proposed information collection: This is a renewal of OMB Control Number 2502-0302.

Authority: The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, 44 U.S.C., Chapter 35, as amended.

Dated: October 15, 2008.

Ronald Y. Spraker,

Acting General Deputy Assistant Secretary for Housing—Deputy Federal Housing Commissioner.