| HUD No. 00-328 | |
| Further Information: | For Release |
| In the Washington, DC area: 202/708-0685 | Thursday |
| Or contact your local HUD office | November 16, 2000 |
CUOMO ANNOUNCES PUBLIC ACCESS TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH EARLY WARNING SYSTEM
WASHINGTON -- Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo today announced that HUD's Neighborhood Watch/Early Warning system has been made available to the public.
The Neighborhood Watch system is a web-based software application that displays loan performance data, by loan types and geographical areas, using FHA insured single family loan information. The system was initially developed to aid HUD staff in evaluating its programs and in monitoring the performance of FHA-approved lenders. Neighborhood Watch was made available to lenders in March 1999, via the FHA Connection, so that lenders could police themselves. Now, the public, including community advocacy organizations, local governments and others, will have access to this data.
“In providing public access to Neighborhood Watch, we are empowering our community-based partners to work more closely with HUD to reduce default and foreclosure rates in their neighborhoods,” Cuomo said. “This is another step in our plan to protect consumers and communities from predatory and abusive lending practices.”
Public access provides community-based organizations and state and local governments with a powerful new tool to monitor and influence lender performance in their communities and target specific neighborhoods for housing counseling, education and outreach, and other types of assistance. Currently, users are able to perform analysis down to the zip-code level. However, the FHA plans to make census tract level data available in the near future.
“The Neighborhood Watch Early Warning System is a great resource for community development groups and anybody else who is concerned about housing in our neighborhoods,” said Gale Cincotta, executive director of National Training and Information Center. “We are pleased HUD has heard the many calls from community groups and others to make this data available to the people that high default lenders affect so they can play a role in foreclosure prevention.”
Users can compare performance data by lender and geographical area. The system displays origination, default and claim information - as well as office address - for specific lenders (home offices and branches). The Neighborhood Watch system also has an extensive on-line help feature.
The loan information is displayed for a two-year origination period and is updated on a monthly basis. The default data is based on “first defaults,” which is the first time loans are reported to HUD as 90 days or more delinquent.
Access to Neighborhood Watch is available through HUD's web site at https://entp.hud.gov/sfnw/public/
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