Hi, I’m Adam DeSantis. This is the Mortgage Minute, the latest news from the Mortgage Bankers Association. There was good news from HUD last Friday morning. They announced a six-month delay on the implementation of its final rule on energy efficiency building standards. The rule requires any new construction with FHA insured and USDA financing to use significantly newer building codes that most states have yet to adopt. HUD said the six month delay will provide additional time for them to review questions of fact. Law and policy supporting the rules and determining the need for HUD to develop further technical assistance. The new single family implementation moves from November, 2025 to May 28th of next year. Multifamily moves from May of this year to November 28th of this year. Last year, MBA urged HUD and USDA to reconsider the impact of this proposal on affordable housing. and call for reversing the rule in a list of recommendations sent to HUD just last month. We believe going beyond a delay, a reversal is needed to maintain affordable FHA financing for new homes and apartments and ensuring that new housing supply remains within reach for hard working families. MBA will continue to highlight its concerns with the policy and in particular its implications for housing costs. In conversations with FHA, USDA, the White House, and on Capitol Hill. 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.