[Adam] Hi, I'm Adam DeSanctis. This is the Mortgage Minute. The latest news from the Mortgage Bankers Association. The Department of Veterans Affairs last week released a circular that creates a temporary local variance for charges related to buyer broker compensation. As you know, veterans are typically prohibited from paying for buyer broker chargers. However, after coordinated advocacy from MBA. NAR and other industry groups since the beginning of this year, the VA now agrees these changes are necessary for veterans to remain competitive buyers. Given the potential changes to buyer broker compensation practices resulting from the recent NAR settlement, the VA will now allow veteran buyers to pay reasonable and customer amounts if they are in an area where listing brokers cannot set commission compensation through a multiple listing service, or the listing broker cannot pay for the buyer broker compensation, and as long as these charges are not included in the loan amount, the VA circular is a stopgap measure in advance of any permanent policy changes, And goes into effect on August 10 of this year. MBA will keep members informed of any updates from the VA on this issue. That's it for this week. Thank you for listening.
Adam DeSanctis, Director of Public Affairs 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.
