Housing and residential mortgage markets in the United States are continuing to recover from several years of turmoil that began with the bursting of a housing "bubble" that peaked in the mid-2000s and burst in 2007-2008. The bubble featured rapidly rising home prices in many areas of the country as well as looser credit standards for obtaining mortgages. The years of housing market turmoil that followed featured sharp declines in house prices, increased mortgage foreclosures, tighter mortgage credit standards, and lower levels of home sales and homebuilding. Since about 2012, many national housing market indicators have been improving from their performance during the years of housing market turmoil. For example, house prices have been rising and negative equity and foreclosure rates have been falling. However, foreclosure rates and negative equity continue to be higher than is generally considered to be normal, and home sales and mortgage originations have been relatively low. In addition, housing affordability continues to be an issue for many households in general, and for low-income renter households in particular. Rising home prices impact the affordability of housing for prospective homebuyers, while increasing numbers of renter households and the corresponding effects on vacancy rates and rents have implications for the affordability and availability of rental housing. The 114 th Congress considered a number of housing-related issues against this backdrop. Some of these issues reflected larger questions about policies that could accelerate recovery in the housing and mortgage markets or factors that could be hampering recovery. For example, Congress considered legislation to modify certain mortgage-related laws and regulations that were put in place during the aftermath of the housing downturn, in response to concern that these new rules may be impeding access to mortgage credit. However, some feel that changes to the rules could weaken consumer protections. Congress also considered certain changes related to two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as other housing finance-related issues. In addition, the 114 th Congress considered a number of issues related to affordable rental housing and assisted housing programs administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). These issues included appropriations for housing programs in a limited funding environment, certain reforms to some HUD-assisted housing programs, the reauthorization of the main program of housing assistance for Native American tribes, and debate about GSE contributions to two affordable housing funds that were created in 2008 but received GSE funding for the first time beginning in 2016. Additional issues of active interest to Congress included oversight of HUD on the occasion of the department's 50 th anniversary, issues related to enforcement of the Fair Housing Act, and the status of certain housing-related tax provisions. This report begins with an overview of housing and mortgage market conditions to provide context for the housing issues that the 114 th Congress considered, and then discusses major housing issues that were active during the Congress. This report is meant to provide a broad overview of the issues and is not intended to provide detailed information or analysis. However, it includes references to other, more in-depth CRS reports on the issues where possible. On a national basis, many owner-occupied housing market indicators have been improving in recent years, with mortgage foreclosure rates falling and household equity increasing. However, these and other indicators, such as home sales and housing starts, have not returned to the levels that were seen prior to the housing bubble. In the case of some indicators, such as house price growth or home sales, it may be unrealistic or undesirable to expect conditions to fully return to those levels. Housing market conditions vary greatly across local housing markets. While some areas of the country have fully recovered from the housing market turmoil, other areas continue to struggle. In particular, many low-income and minority neighborhoods appear to be recovering less quickly than most other areas, if at all. The housing market turmoil that began around 2007 was characterized by, among other things, falling house prices that left many households with little or no equity in their homes. As shown in Figure 1 , on a year-over-year basis house prices increased from 2000 to mid-2007 then declined for several years through the end of 2011. House prices began to rise again nationally in 2012. They continued to rise throughout 2015 and 2016, with the rate of increase remaining relatively consistent since the beginning of 2015. While rising house prices are beneficial for current homeowners, and especially for households whose home values fell to levels below the amount they owed on their mortgages, they can also make it less affordable for prospective homebuyers to purchase homes. During the housing market turmoil, falling house prices left many households in a negative equity position, meaning that they owed more on their mortgages than their homes were currently worth. Negative equity can contribute to foreclosures because it prevents households from selling their homes for enough to pay off their mortgages if they are having difficulty staying current on mortgage payments. Furthermore, negative equity can affect the housing market by making households less likely to put their homes up for sale, as many homeowners may be reluctant to sell their homes if the sales prices will not be enough to pay off their mortgage balances. With home prices increasing on a national basis, the number of households estimated to have negative equity has been falling. As shown in Figure 2 , in the third quarter of 2016 just over 6% of all mortgaged properties were estimated to have negative equity. In comparison, in the second quarter of 2011 the negative equity share was estimated at about 25%. Although rising home prices have helped many households regain equity, it is estimated that over 3 million homes with a mortgage remain in negative equity across the country. Furthermore, although the overall rate of negative equity is improving, negative equity is not evenly distributed across the country. In particular, negative equity remains persistently high in many low-income and minority neighborhoods. Lower-priced homes also continue to experience negative equity at higher rates than higher-priced homes. This suggests that many areas are not experiencing housing market recovery at the same pace as other areas. Partly because of rising house prices and decreasing negative equity, mortgage foreclosure rates have also been consistently declining. As shown in Figure 3 , the share of mortgages in the foreclosure process decreased to about 1.5% in the fourth quarter of 2016. This is notably lower than the peak of over 4.5% in 2010 and the lowest rate of mortgages in the foreclosure process since the second quarter of 2007. In comparison, in the early 2000s foreclosure rates generally ranged between 1% and 1.5%. Home sales include both sales of existing homes and sales of newly built homes. Existing home sales generally number in the millions each year, while new home sales are usually in the hundreds of thousands. During the housing market turmoil, both existing home sales and new home sales fell. Both have been increasing somewhat in recent years, though new home sales in particular remain relatively low. Figure 4 shows the annual number of existing home sales for each year from 1995 through 2016. Existing home sales during that period peaked in 2005 at over 7 million before falling to a low of about 4.1 million in 2008. In 2016, there were nearly 5.5 million existing homes sold, the highest number of existing home sales since 2006 and similar to the numbers seen in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Figure 5 shows the annual number of new home sales for each year from 1995 through 2016. Though the number of new home sales has begun to increase somewhat, reaching over 560,000 in 2016, new home sales remain well below the levels seen in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when they tended to be between 800,000 and 1 million per year. Housing starts are the number of new homes on which construction is started in a given period. The number of housing starts is consistently higher than the number of new home sales. This is primarily because housing starts include homes that are not intended to be put on the for-sale market, such as homes built by the owner of the land or homes built for rental. Housing starts for single-family homes also fell during the housing market turmoil, reflecting decreased home purchase demand. Nevertheless, as housing markets have started to stabilize, there have been signs that housing starts are also beginning to increase. As shown in Figure 6 , which shows the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts for each month from January 1995 through December 2016, the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts in one-unit residential buildings was generally between 1.2 million and 1.8 million each month from 2000 through 2007. Since that time, however, the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts fell to a rate of between 400,000 and 600,000 for each month until about 2013. More recently, housing starts have been trending upward, and were close to or exceeded a seasonally adjusted annual rate of over 700,000 for much of 2015 and 2016. However, they remained well below the levels seen throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Most homeowners take out a mortgage to purchase a home. Therefore, owner-occupied housing markets are closely linked to the mortgage market (though they are not the same). The ability of prospective homebuyers to obtain mortgages impacts the demand for homes. As shown in Figure 7 , in the years following 2007 the number of mortgages originated for home purchases (as opposed to mortgages to refinance a home) was relatively low, though it has been increasing somewhat in recent years. While close to 5 million home purchase mortgages were originated in 2004, that number fell to 2.5 million in 2008 and 2.1 million in 2011. In 2015, there were about 3.2 million home purchase mortgage originations, up from about 2.8 million in 2014 and 2.7 million in 2013. There are several possible reasons why home purchase mortgage originations, and home sales in general, may not be increasing more quickly. Economic pressures could be affecting both the supply of homes on the market and demand for those homes. For example, some current homeowners may be unwilling to sell their homes due to negative equity or other reasons, leading to lower numbers of homes for sale in many markets.