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49 SHEILA BAIR, Author, Corporate Director and Former Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Sheila Bair has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in government, academia, and finance. From 2006-2011, Bair was Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), steering the agency through one of the worst financial crises since the Great Depression. She is a frequent commentator and op-ed contributor on financial regulation and the student debt crisis, as well as author of the New York Times best-seller Bull by the Horns, her 2012 memoir of the financial crisis. Bair currently serves on several corporate governing boards, including Fannie Mae as the first woman Chair; Bunge Ltd., as Deputy Chair and Chair of the Corporate Governance and Nominations Committee; and Lion Electric. On a recent episode of the SitusAMC podcast On the Hill—hosted by Tim Rood, Head of Government and Industry Relations for SitusAMC—Bair, along with former government officials, discussed the housing and mortgage markets through a D.C. lens to help understand issues of the past, current, and future. Despite many accumulating wealth during the pandemic, is now the time for first-time and prospective buyers to enter the market? Is this the right time to expand access to mortgage credit and/or provide financial incentives like down payment assistance reduce credit risk Here's what Bair had to say: "We're probably going to be facing a recession in the next six to 12 months and could very well be facing a significant housing market correction, which may have some silver linings in terms of at least making housing more affordable again," Bair said. "But to be encouraging someone who has never owned a home before for whom the payment may be a bit of a stretch ... to bring them into this ecosystem right now with those kinds of conditions, they may not have that kind of background and experience to understand how perilous conditions are and what their risks might be with a mortgage six months from now that might have an adjustable rate where the home price may well have gone down. ey may have lost their job in a recession. ere is a lot of risk ahead for the lower- and middle-income segment of our population." RYAN BOLDEN, VP of Default Servicing, PennyMac Loan Services LLC Founded in 2008, PennyMac is a specialty financial services firm focused on the production and servicing of mortgage loans and the management of investments related to the U.S. mortgage market. Ryan Bolden currently serves as VP of Default Servicing for PennyMac. For the 12-month period that ended March 31, 2022, PennyMac production of newly originated loans totaled $201 billion in unpaid principal balance (UPB). In that same period, PennyMac serviced loans totaling $519 billion in UPB, making it a top 10 mortgage servicer in the nation. "As a servicer, when it comes to our customers, what we're really looking at is to resolve delinquencies, as our active COVID forbearance numbers continue to drop because they reached their max capacity and they're expiring," said Bolden of PennyMac's customer connection. "We're looking to provide options that are unprecedented pre-COVID, and now have some improved and streamlined modification options that don't require full underwriting. It really comes down to solicitation and marketing, and ultimately, educating customers on the options available now that they may not have been privy to before COVID." Working with borrowers to come to an amicable resolution is key to all servicers, but the advances made by PennyMac during the pandemic have opened new inroads of communication for borrowers. "We've actually set up a portal where customers can go online and check in, so it doesn't necessarily have to just be a customer call-in," Bolden explained. "ose avenues help the customers with that, but I think we've seen much more responsiveness for the customers, especially after January of this year." And addressing borrowers who need options to stay in their home, servicers can sometimes find themselves in a game of cat- and-mouse to even get their customers on "We're probably going to be facing a recession in the next six to 12 months and could very well be facing a significant housing market correction, which may have some silver linings in terms of at least making housing more affordable again." —Sheila Bair, Former Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation