In this episode of Lykken on Lending, we sit down with Bob Broeksmit, President and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association, for a timely and insightful conversation on the state of the mortgage industry. From key advocacy efforts on Capitol Hill to the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Bob shares updates on GSE reform, HUD leadership, and the regulatory shifts shaping housing finance today. We also dive into market trends like consumer direct lending and the implications of recent M&A activity—including Rocket’s headline-grabbing moves. If you’re looking for a front-row seat to the forces driving mortgage policy and market dynamics, this episode is a must-listen.
[David] We’re in for a real treat today. Joining me on the podcast is Bob Broeksmit, President and CEO of the Mortgage Banker Association. He is a 35 year mortgage industry veteran. He’s been President and CEO of a number of mortgage companies, including Treliant, as well as BF Saul Mortgage. Boy, that’s a blast from the past. We haven’t heard about that one in a long time. As well as Capital One, as well as Prudential Home Mortgage, just to name a few, and I’m really interested, we’re gonna circle back on the Prudential Home Mortgage one because of its Consumer Direct. Marketing position that he had there. We’ll get back to that later. But Bob, just wanna say welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here.
[Bob] David, appreciate you having me on. Thank you.
[David] It’s a real honor Bob and I wanna first of all start out by saying again, I personally and so many of our listeners are so grateful to you and the MBA for your leadership, all that you’re trying to do in this industry and it’s a no small task and when you look at the diversity that we have, you do it an outstanding job. And kudos to you, Marsha, and the whole team, for an outstanding effort that you all do. And it’s not easy, especially when you look at all that is going on in the marketplace right now. And that’s where I really wanna start. I wanna give a shout out to the Advocacy Conference that’s coming up here. We’ll if you wouldn’t mind, let’s put that in at the front or put it again at the back. They say speak at least twice about something. Hopefully it’ll stick. Talk about the advocacy conference that’s coming up. Start there.
[Bob] Yes, David, we’re excited about this. On Tuesday and Wednesday, April 8th and 9th here in Washington, we’re having our National Advocacy Conference and we have a great lineup of Capitol Hill heavyweights who are gonna be addressing the, starting with HUD secretary Scott Turner will be with us.
[David] Really good.
[Bob] And we’re gonna have Elizabeth Warren of course the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts and the ranking Member of the Senate Banking Committee and the really the brains behind the founding of the CFPB. So, that should be a fascinating discussion. And we have Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia. And for those of you who’ve been around a while, you’ll remember that he knows a lot about GSE reform, and one of the past efforts to get it done was called Corker Warner, and he’s the Warner of that effort. We have Pete Ricketts, the Republican senator from Nebraska who happens to be in the family that owns the Chicago Cubs for any baseball fans out there. Yeah. And we have Lisa McClain, who’s the number four house Republican from Michigan and she’ll be fascinating. And we have Tom Tillis is, wasn’t able to come in person, but is gonna join us by video. A very influential Member of the Senate who has seats on both. Senate Finance and Senate banking. So I went straight to who’s coming, but I didn’t really tell you what it is. So it’s really,
[David] That’s what I’m really wanna focus, explain to our listeners why this is such a seminal event. It’s such an important occasion, especially with what’s going on right now in DC, right?
[Bob] It’s our opportunity to come to Washington and to advocate directly with lawmakers, both senators and representatives on the issues that matter most for mortgage banking. So, for the first day, we’ll coach everybody up on the top issues and we’ll hear from those speakers I mentioned. But the second day, which is Wednesday the 9th, we’re actually on Capitol Hill making visits to lawmakers and importantly to their staff. Sometimes people are disappointed if the principal is offered a vote or something and can’t join us. But believe me when I tell you, it’s really important for the staff who does a lot of the day-to-day work to understand our issues because there are times, frankly, when a member will be going to a vote and say to his legislative assistant or her legislative assistant. Which way am I voting on this? So it’s really key that we educate the staff too. So, whether it’s about responsible exit from conservatorship for the GSEs, and the importance of an explicit guarantee on their MBS, should they ever be released from conservatorship or whether it’s on the trigger leads bill, which has been a torn in our industry side for a couple years now or whether it’s some of the multifamily and commercial issues that are out there. We really need people to turn up. We’re almost to 600, which is a great showing.
[David] That’s a great number.
[Bob] I think we’re up 25% over last year and the thing that matters so much is that these elected representatives here from me and from Bill Kilmer and his lobbying staff at MBA. All the time, but we’re the hired help. When they hear from actual constituents who vote for them, employ people in their districts, provide financial services, products in their districts, boy do they sit up and take notice. So that’s really the important part.
[David] It’s so important that we get behind and support Bill and his efforts on the Hill by showing up. Another way to do that is of course, the Mortgage Action Alliance app. It’s a very powerful tool that has, again, you don’t have to be a member of the MBA to sign up and have your voice heard in the hill, but I strongly recommend that you become a member.
[Bob] Me too.
[David] Yeah, I’m sure. And I really wanna point the importance of the Mortgage Action Alliance app, because that does really help Bill and his efforts there. But Bill does just, to talk about a passion guy who’s just going in there and there’s so much changes. I want to hear about what the MBA is really focusing on these days, there’s so much going on. There’s so many issues. Which ones are you pursuing? How do you select the priorities on what’s going on? I would think the GSEs coming out of conservatorship would be a huge one.
[Bob] Yes, it is true that the pace is fast and furious in Washington.
[David] But boy, more so this with this administration.
[Bob] Yes. I think it’s an order of magnitude faster than we’ve seen with other administrations, and that has pluses and minuses. There’s a lot of things that we have advocated for in the agency. So, set aside the legislative part for a minute, but in FHFA or CFPB or HUD, FHA, Ginnie Mae. And what we’ve done is in alignment with our committee structure. We have rank and file members who sit on committees and help us form the policies and then what we’ve done is with each agency like that, we’ve devised what we call a day one letter so that we have it ready when the principal is confirmed. So let’s say Scott Turner’s confirmed at HUD. We deliver the letter that says, here are the things we think you should focus on as it relates to housing finance in the early days of your tenure. So, we look at things perhaps that happened in the Biden administration that we disagreed with and ask for relief from those and we also say, here’s some things that you can put your own stamp on that will help advance the cause of affordable home ownership in this country. So that’s how we get to things and You’ve already seen or perhaps you haven’t, because it’s been so fast and furious range things ranging from an unworkable rule that FHFA put out last year that would’ve had Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac effectively be compliance examiners for all of their seller servicers. It’s a nutty idea. It’s completely duplicative of other functions out there, and I’m happy to say that Bill Pulte at FHFA has already pulled that regulation or that guidance back. That was one of the things on our day one list and we can check it off and there are a lot of others both there and at HUD that we’re really moving the needle on. But the other thing that we want to ensure is that in all the speed of the new administration, and again, that can be very helpful when they’re doing away with things that we don’t think made sense in the first place. That they also make sure that they don’t move so quickly that they harm the market. For instance, we’re concerned about HUD’s recent FHAs recent move to not permit FHA lending to non-permanent resident aliens. So, I think that one can have different views, whether they’re political views or however you wanna phrase it about DACA recipients. The fact is that the mandate from HUD precludes FHA from doing loans to, let’s say H1B visa holders that’s a materially different population, right? H1B visa holders are here legally. It’s a multi-year employment related legal residency, and they’ve been getting mortgages in this country for decades. So we wanna make sure that policies like that are well thought out and that we have consultation with the government bodies that are making them. So, there’s benefits to the fast paced, but there’s also sometimes some drawbacks.
[David] Yeah. I’m asking this question in your read on Scott Turner at this point, is he listening to the MBA and what you are advising on that or are you are you finding this to be hopeful partnership?
[Bob] Yes, we joined, we led a coalition of 23 groups that supported his confirmation.
[David] Oh, good. So we had that, that’s a good way to start the relationship.
[Bob] Yeah precisely. We had the first industry meeting with Scott Turner before he was even confirmed. We had it the day after his confirmation hearing. So, we got in on the ground floor and we certainly have open channels of communication and we also have now that they are like other agencies filling out some of their political appointees, we have very capable deputy assistant secretaries for both single family and multifamily who are industry veterans, know the issues and once you start populating the ranks with people like that, then things tend to go much more smoothly. So we’re very optimistic about that.
[David] Is Scott Turner’s. I like the guy, first of all I’m hopeful and have reason for optimism in where he’s going with a lot of it. I get concerned about staffing and staffing cuts with that’s going on. We know there’s at least some fat that can be cut out of every organization within there that’s going up elsewhere. But when you look at the size and the function, the important role that HUD has. It’s kinda it’s delicate. I’m really, I get a little nervous when you talk about seeing what Doge is doing and making cuts sweeping cuts in so many different areas. Any field see going on there at HUD, he making a significant
[Bob] Yes and what we’re hearing is that, back to my comment about getting, political appointees in there who know the industry. I think will have significant influence over making those cuts surgical ones and remembering that both FHA and Ginnie Mae, which of course is part of HUD as well, are programs that not only serve the critical purpose of affordable housing, but return money to the taxpayer. Ginnie Mae and FHA are both budget positive meaning that their revenues exceed their expenses. We are quite optimistic that because they’re so mission critical and because they deliver surpluses to the government every year that the cuts there will be surgical and we have assurances from the people there that they’ll be able to continue doing their important work. That doesn’t mean that HUD writ large will not have significant cuts, but I think that the cuts as it relates to the mortgage specific parts will be more moderate and surgical.
[David] I’m really interested to see what he’s gonna be doing upgrading the technology, we’re still dealing with some archaic technology within HUD and even it in Ginnie Mae. You brought up Ginnie Mae. I wanna go over there just briefly. They’re already so thin if on the staff, they have so many contractors that work and support the Ginnie Mae effort. Your thoughts on what we can anticipate Scott’s leadership over Ginnie Mae?
[Bob] Sure. Couple of things. We had advocated for several years for Ginnie Mae to get a bigger appropriation so they could add permanent staff and the good news is that. We, and I’m sure others were successful in that, so that for the fiscal year that started October 1st, 2024, they added quite a number of full-time people, like 50 or 60, something like that. And on a base of a couple hundred, that’s a pretty big increase.
[David] That’s a big percentage. But still, you look at, it seems so inadequate for the load that they’re lifting,
[Bob] But the trouble is that means that there were when the first cuts across the government were announced, the trouble is that a lot of the people at Ginnie Mae hadn’t been there a year, meaning they were probationary. So a lot of them were swept away. Now what we got good news last week we had a call with senior officials at Ginnie Mae and they told us that they were able to retain some of their probationary employees, which is a big deal because you don’t wanna bring in 50 or 60 promising new people and then say, oh, nevermind. We don’t need you after all. While the court proceedings continue and some courts have said that probationary people should be reinstated and some agencies are leaving them on administrative leave because you don’t wanna offboard them and onboard them and offboard them again. But we did get encouraging news, as I mentioned from Ginnie Mae last week, that they were able to retain some of their probationary employees, which is really important with all of the things on their plate.
[David] Yeah, no kidding. That’s true. Let’s contrast to what Scott is doing over there at HUD and Ginnie Mae to what director Pulte is doing with FHFA. We were a bit stunned when we woke up here recently about the changes at both Fannie and Freddie. Starting with Freddie, I love just the whole MBA’s perspective on this about what you’re doing behind the scenes on this.
[Bob] Sure. We have a good relationship with Director Pulte. We got to know him almost immediately upon his nomination and he brings a real business first approach to the GSEs, and I think if you look at some of the moves he’s made, what you’ll see is that he is returning to the statutory purpose of FHFA and if you look at the enabling legislation for FHFA. I believe it said you need three deputy directors or assistant directors or whatever the nomenclature is.
[David] I remember reading that. Yes.
[Bob] One is to supervise the safety and soundness of Fannie and Freddie. One is to look after the mission and goals to make sure that they’re adhering to their charter for encouraging and financing affordable housing. And the third is that they supervise the federal home loan banks. If you then look at the org chart of FHFA today, I think you’d find several more deputy or assistant directors. And these are not mandated functions and I believe that a common denominator in some of the cuts that FHFA you’ve seen Director Pulte make, would be in areas that were not required, not designated by their charter. So trying to there’s creep and bloat in a lot of agencies and certainly in government ones. So I think you’re seeing some of that and then the other thing is that at the GSEs themselves, I believe he’s focusing on letting them do the important work of running their businesses and do less of reporting to FHFA and focusing on things that are not central to the mission of making mortgages and financing more new construction in this country and really moving this housing economy forward.
[David] What is the MBA’s position on privatizing Fannie and Freddie? There’s a lot of us, both of them started within federal government. They spun out, then they’re back in. I just get nervous about messing with our housing finance system in America. It’s the best in the world. Your thoughts, where’s the MBA? What’s your position?
[Bob] I think it’s an untenable position to say that one is for a forever conservatorship, but conservatorship is effectively a timeout. It says, we’ve got a problem here.
[David] You can find to something other than conservatorship. It wasn’t a conservatorship when they were formed and they were inside the federal government, both of ’em were started within the federal government.
[Bob] Okay. So they were government-sponsored enterprises and they had an implicit guarantee.
[David] That’s right.
[Bob] I think everybody can say blew up on everybody’s faces. So we don’t wanna go back to the effectively unregulated and undercapitalized GSEs, right? But we also don’t think they should be in conservatorship forever. We think it’s stifling. We think the innovation is has been really at a low level and the overbearing nature of a conservatorship makes it hard to attract and retain the top people. So we are for a responsible exit from conservatorship, but underscore responsible and we think that it should be done with a lot of stakeholder input and we believe that a legislated, explicit guarantee on the mortgage-backed securities of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. It’s a prerequisite for an effective exit because we think that odds are very high that absent that, you’d see significant increases in mortgage interest rates. So, we’ve been heartened to hear Treasury Secretary Besant say, I’m busy this year with taxes. But when we do get around to looking at Fannie and Freddie, we’ll be guided by how anything we do would affect interest rates, which we completely agree with. And sounds like it’s laying the groundwork for a reasonable, responsible exit that will not harm what you rightly described as the best housing finance system in the world.
[David] Yeah. I look at what could be done and how it’s done. Let’s not race that one. But Besant’s comments were reassuring. I think it’s also, when you look at the stock price of Fannie Mae, it seems it is. I know a number of us that have been in buying, hoping that this would happen. I remember being on a Fox and CNBC talking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a number of years ago. And boy, every time I stepped off my phone would blow up from those who are shareholders wanting to see this thing happen. So it’s encouraging.
[Bob] Let me just interject one minute there, David. We are completely agnostic about how any investors in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Fair? We don’t think that’s a place for MBA to play.
[David] That’s a good point.
[Bob] We are about the effect on the housing market. The housing finance market. And I, for what it’s worth, never look at the common stock price of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. They can be so easily moved by rumor. That’s all I’m saying.
[David] And I agree with you, but those of us who are investors and enjoy playing the market in different ways. It’s been a, it’s an interesting discussion. Is the only reason I look at this, what has happened on the price. It’s been pretty fascinating. I wanna get back to the advocacy conference. I wanna talk about some of the issues that you’re gonna be talking there about specifically, what will you be as you go into these sessions, what will you be talking about with each one, and then how do you navigate the different political perspectives as you go into these? How Bill and you navigate that.
[Bob] Sure. The good thing is that housing and housing finance are bipartisan issues. They’re, we were really struck during the recent presidential campaign that both presidential candidates, mentioned and focused on not just affordability of a dozen eggs or a gallon of gas, but of housing. It’s an issue all around the country, urban, suburban, and rural. So every office, regardless of where they are on the political spectrum, welcomes MBA members to talk about this because it’s really important to their constituents. So that’s the first thing. The door is open and then we come in with common sense proposals like limiting the use of trigger leads.
[David] So that talk about trigger leads because that’s been such a difficult.
[Bob] And I think you know, David how difficult it is to get legislation across the finish line. We came darn close in the last session where we had a trigger leads. Bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent, almost nothing in these polarized days. Polarized days passes by unanimous consent, but we got it over the finish line. We were unable to get it added to a house vehicle at the end of the year. And of course when the session ends, you gotta start over. So we’ll be reintroducing a bipartisan trigger leads bill, and we are hoping to leverage the momentum we had at the end of last term and get that over the finish line because you just can’t have borrowers inundated with irresponsible calls from we’ve heard as many as 250 sources of financing within 36 hours blitzing your text and your cell phone, and oftentimes leading the borrower to think that somehow the lender. In the borrower’s mind. Nobody knows I applied for a mortgage except the lender, and they must have sold my information. Of course, it’s not in the lender’s interest to sell the information. But now the lender is on the defensive saying, Hey, it wasn’t me, it’s the credit bureaus. And so it’s a really lousy situation and so we have a common sense Bill that we’re going to we’re gonna push with the members of Congress and then back to GSE release for a second. Most members of Congress were not in the Congress in 2017 when the last tax bill was passed, let alone when the last GSE reform. Effort was tried. So we’re doing a lot of education on the hill. There’s no moving vehicle right now on GSE release, but we’re gonna be educating every office about how important it is and that it be done responsible and then the third thing, of course, is the wide variety of tax issues that affect our industry, that are up for extension, renewal, being made permanent, however you want characterize it because the tax cut in Jobs act Trump’s 2017 tax bill is expiring at the end of this year. So we’ll spend a lot of time
[David] That’s right. It’s at the end of this year. Yeah.
[Bob] Exactly right. So we’ll spend a lot of time, and this is on the top of mind of Congress today as you follow all the budget and the reconciliation discussions going on and we wanna make sure, like things like the treatment of capital gains on home sales and the mortgage interest deduction and the for the independent mortgage bankers out there, the section 199A deductions to give parity to partnerships and S corps with C Corps. Those are all very important issues. It can get into the weeds, but we’ll certainly be educating the hill about why those provisions are important to affordable high financing in this country.
[David] We have and most of our listeners are on the resi side of the business, but you also have strong advocacy for the commercial side. What are some of the commercial side initiatives you’re gonna be talking about there?
[Bob] Sure. Because Fannie and Freddie do multifamily as well, right? The GSC release will certainly be on their mind. Insurance is a big issue. It is on the single family side as well as on the commercial multifamily side. They’ll be meeting with some insurance experts and they’ll also have the housing and insurance subcommittee of House of Financial Services. They’ll have the chair and the ranking member, Mike Flood from Nebraska, and Emanuel Cleaver from Missouri, address them. And also Hugh Rader, a former Fannie Mae, CEO, will be addressing the commercial tracks. So we have a lot of interesting topics on top for them as well.
[David] Let’s get over to talk about some recent headline issues. We’re talking about Rocket’s purchase of Redfin, and then again. This week, this Monday was Rocket’s purchase of Mr. Cooper. Certainly seems to be a trend of consolidation. What are your thoughts on, you look at this, I know you’re close to both organizations.
[Bob] Sure. I think it’s really interesting. You saw several IMBs go public when volumes were so high during the pandemic. And one of the benefits that gives to a company like Rocket is, it gives them the currency to do big deals like that because you’ll see, for instance, the Mr. Cooper deal is an exchange of stock. It’s not a cash deal and so they have the currency to do big deals like that, which I think if you think about the old macro hedge, those of us who’ve been around a while remember that you’re good at originations and then when rates go up, you are making money on servicing and when rates come down, you refinance the servicing and you’re doing origination. So it’s a way to have your earnings be more stable through the interest rate cycle, which has been one of the really difficult things for lenders in the 40 years I’ve been in the business to match that up. So I think that Rocket, which is better known as an originator, they certainly are major servicer as well, but when they add the enormous Mr. Cooper servicing portfolio. It’ll throw out a lot of refinance opportunities and maybe this gets back to your earlier point about direct consumer and Rocket’s really good at that. And I think that’s a strategy there for this integration between the origination and servicing side of the business.
[David] Look at overall. And then I think it’s also interesting that Mr. Bray will be going in and leading Rocket moving forward, who has been at Mr. Cooper. So I look at that from a culture shift. I know that’s not something yesterday you guys focus on, but for those of us that are industry observers, I think it’s gonna be an interesting to see how that culture as Peter Drucker said culture trumps strategy every single time. Again, that’ll be real interesting to see how, if there’s a culture shift there still throw that as comment. You can add to that if you want.
[Bob] Just to mention that he’ll be reporting to the CEO of Rocket. So I’m not expecting huge cultural shifts there, but one never knows. But I do think it’s significant that he reports to the incumbent CEO of Rocket.
[David] Yeah. I think it’ll be most interesting when you look at consumer direct I’ve seen a trend from where I sit in the industry, a lot of people are initiating or there’s a return to exploring if consumer direct is not a good way to start reducing our origination costs. I really appreciate what Mike Frattantoni does. We look at the overall cost to originate still so ridiculously high and 60%, I believe is the number that Mike is throwing out. Generally that range of what the cost, overall cost goes is mortgage loan, origination, compensation, something unrelated to the origination side of the business. There is a thought that going into consumer direct will be able to cut the costs you having been at Prudential Mortgage as Vice President for consumer direct to get your comments about consumer direct and then going over to the overall cost originate on the, what can we do to reduce the cost from the originator side of it.
[Bob] Sure. The consumer direct margins are the envy of the business. When there is business in the consumer direct channel and when there’s not, it’s really hard not to have.
[David] That’s why we saw it dry up so much. Yes.
[Bob] Not to have red ink. Put another way. It’s great when there are a lot of refis and it’s not so great when there aren’t. So I think back to the Rocket example.
[David] Redfin. Yeah.
[Bob] I think they believe that the Redfin acquisition will give them a leg up on some purchase originations.
[David] That’s exactly why I bring it up.
[Bob] That they can do profitably through their direct model and I gotta tell you, when I was running the direct consumer division at Prudential Home Mortgage. We made hay while the sun’s shown with refi, but we would do all kinds of crazy stuff like by subscription lists for Brides Magazine to try to say, gee, if you’re a newlywed, maybe you’re gonna buy a house. And it was fun to experiment, but I’ll have to tell you, I don’t think we ever hit on a profitable way of originating purchase loans with any volume without that loan officer who’s interacting with the realtor and being at the point of decision, the point of sale. So I’m not sure that too many lenders have figured that out in the intervening 20 years or whatever it’s been since I had that role. But I do think that this this Redfin Rocket combination might be an interesting forward in that regard.
[David] It’s light on the possibility of it being there. ’cause again, everyone’s says race to the top of the sales funnel and we’re seeing more with technology gives us the ability more lenders can get to the top of the sales funnel. In there. It’s interesting. My daughter got contacted when she was in college at Baylor of all places by someone who said was looking at her Instagram and her Pinterest what she was liking on there, and you thinking about buying a home and so what we can do to get to the top of the sales funnel, form relationships and connections for first time home buyers, it’s, there’s a lot of innovative things coming to the market that we had available now, that we have available now then what you had available back in the prediction.
[Bob] If somebody calls me and says, I’ve been looking at your social media feed, I’m gonna hang up on them.
[David] That’s exactly an impressionable kid in college and then. It actually formed a relationship. And when my daughter got married to her Baylor boyfriend, and they’re now, we got two key grandkids from them they actually went with that loan officer and they formed a relationship.
[Bob] Wow.
[David] And so it’s really interesting. I had to say first, right? You talk to them. You, yeah. But I think we engage, which really comes to what you are doing at the MBA. You’re engaging in such a dynamic way. It’s a relationship business. We’re all about process. It’s a complicated, we look at all the different things that can challenge our business from a regulatory standpoint and on. But at the end of the day, it’s a relationship business and I’m so grateful that you took the time to be here today. We should touch on a regulatory environment. Do we see any easing in this, in your perspective with this administration?
[Bob] Yes. I would say dramatic easing, and I’ll give you a couple of data points. The CFPB, which I think almost everyone would agree was extremely active under Director Chopra. I always, took him to task because he would get up and say that he has all sorts of dormant and latent authorities. I said, geez, Rohit, you’ve got enough annunciated authorities. I don’t know why you have to go over the dormant and the latent ones and the regulation by enforcement was just out of control. And so what are you seeing in the early days of the current CFPB? You look at the Townstone case in Chicago that was settled in the Biden administration and this this iteration of the CFPB is saying, we never should have brought the case. We would like to refund the fine and there was protected free speech at play there. That, If there were anything more dramatic than a 180, I think mathematically a 180 is as dramatic a turnaround as you can do. That was it and a slowing down or dismissal of all sorts of pending investigations by the bureau, but importantly. You are also seeing some of the rule writers come back to the bureau, which we advocated from day one. We said deleting the bureau actually doesn’t achieve your goals because what that does is freeze in place a lot of bad regulations that the Chopra and the Cordray brought in. And since nobody’s repealed the administrative Procedure Act, you have to go through notice and comment rulemaking to fix a lot of that stuff and in order to do that, you need people who know what they’re doing. So we’re heartened to see Mark Calabria bring back some of the rule writers and have some progress made so that we don’t swing back 180 degrees the other way when the day comes and it will come that a Democrat is back in the White House.
[David] You gave a speech here a few months ago that you talked about where you said, and I can’t remember, it was at one of the it was a luncheon, I believe you spoke at and you talked about the cobweb of regulatory. Its and it causes everyone to go race into the middle to play to the safest parts of the end. We’re not serving the community especially some of the more unfortunate ones that are been outside of the housing finance system is unfortunately the regulatory environment has made it difficult and to put mildly, are you so that cobweb, you see that cobweb easing a bit. You remember that speech when you referenced cobweb?
[Bob] I do, yes. And we do see signs early on in this administration that they are. For instance, I mentioned a few minutes ago, the UDAP, unfair, deceptive, acts and practices rule from FHFA, being rescinded and it specifically said, look, the FTC already looks at that and so you are seeing signs from this administration that if you’ve got overlapping turf, let’s put it to the regulator that it most appropriately resides in and not have these overlapping and confusing mandates. So I do think there’s significant opportunity for that spider web to get untangled, at least partially during this administration.
[David] Once it gets in place, it’s difficult to get rid of it. But yes, I’m hopeful. Thank you so much for being here, Bob. Again, I wanna say thank you to you and your leadership. You’re bringing to the our industry and you, Marcia, and the whole team Bill. It’s an impossible task at times and you guys are doing yeoman’s work and we’re so grateful for you. Thanks for coming on today.
[Bob] Thank you David, and on behalf of the 160 people here at the NBA, it’s a big team. They’re all devoted to the industry and we couldn’t be more proud to serve as your representatives in Washington.
[David] And a special shout out to Adam DeSanctis. He’s a regular on our podcast every Monday. He’s on faithfully with a report. Bringing the issues of the MBA that’s most important at that moment onto our podcast. I’m grateful for the partnership we have with Adam and the whole MBA here. So thank you so much, sir.
[Bob] Thank you so much, David. Appreciate it.
[David] You bet.
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Brian S. Levy, Of Counsel with Katten & Temple, LLP in Chicago, provides actionable and creative compliance, transactional and regulatory guidance for mortgage lenders, banks, and related providers to the settlement service industry. Brian has unique sales and in-house experience enabling him to offer practical guidance and effective training on matters such as RESPA, LO compensation, mortgage repurchase defense, loan sale and technology agreements, transaction and business structuring, new business initiatives, and various regulatory and enforcement issues. Levy also has a thriving practice representing owners and prospective buyers of summer camps and is a member of the Board of Directors for the American Camp Association.
Brian is a thoughtful industry pundit and the author of the provocative, insightful, and heavily footnoted with humor, Levy’s Mortgage Musings. Sign up for a free subscription at www.mortgagemusings.com. He is also a frequent conference speaker, magazine contributor and webinar/podcast guest. Brian was General Counsel for a mid-sized midwestern bank (and its 3 mortgage banking subsidiaries) for 15 years and prior to that handled primarily commercial real estate matters at a large law firm in Chicago. Brian graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, (A.B., 1986, Summa Cum Laude) and Harvard Law School (J.D.,1989). Brian can be reached at 262/241-7977 or blevy@kattentemple.com and can be followed on LinkedIn @BrianSLevy.