Hi, I’m Adam DeSanctis. This is The Mortgage Minute, the latest news from the Mortgage Bankers Association. It’s been a busy few weeks in Washington, and specifically at the CFPB. Following OMB Director Russell Vought being named the CFPB’s Acting Director, Jonathan McKernan was nominated to serve as the Permanent Director. McKernan was most recently a member of the FDIC Board, and he also has deep housing finance experience from his past work at FHFA, Treasury, and during his work in the Senate. Until McKernan is confirmed by the full Senate, the agency will continue to be led by Acting Director Vought. Also, last week, Acting Director Vought issued an even more expansive and prescriptive memorandum than the one Treasury Secretary Scott Besant sent earlier in the week to CFPB staff. The memo explicitly halts all ongoing work at the CFPB, at least temporarily. In addition, although the CFPB website landing page returns a 404 error, all other materials on the website remain available for now. given this phrase, MBA and other stakeholders pushed for, and got the CFPB to clarify its intent to continue to publish APOR data. They did so on Thursday and said they will continue to while significant changes at CFPB are needed, MBA has urged the administration to ensure that the process carefully evaluates the impact on the mortgage and housing finance ecosystem. MBA is monitoring the ongoing developments at the CFPB and is engaging with the Trump administration to better understand the review of the agency’s activities and future priorities. That’s it for this week. Thank you for listening.
Adam DeSanctis, VP, Communication at Mortgage Bankers Association
As a strategic public affairs and communications executive with nearly two decades of experience, Adam has deep expertise in strategy, management, and media relations. He is widely considered to be an expert in a variety of communications, including advocacy, brand, executive, crisis, grassroots, and social media. In his career, he has been the MBA spokesperson on a wide variety of real estate research and advocacy-related issues, promoted MBA research and advocacy efforts to financial, political, and trade industry media and on MBA’s social media channels, and secured media opportunities for MBA leadership on key real estate trends and issues, generated media coverage for MBA’s research and data on mortgage applications, credit availability, homebuilder applications, mortgage forbearance/delinquencies, commercial real estate originations, and forecasts, and other industry analysis, developed key strategic initiatives for MBA’s organizational public affairs plan, media relations and member communications support for mPower, MBA’s Opens Doors Foundation and MBA’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs.