[Adam] Hi, I'm Adam DeSanctis, this is the Mortgage Minute. The latest news from the Mortgage Bankers Association. Last week at MBA secondary in New York City, the VA announced that it will release a circular by June 12 to address the buyer commission prohibition. The circular will be in place while a formal rulemaking process occurs. As you may recall, NBA has long advocated for such a move, including in a letter sent to the VA on April 3, urging them to amend its regulations to allow veteran borrowers to pay reasonable and customary fees and commissions to retain agents that will represent their interest in a real estate transaction. We remain engaged with all of the government agencies about possible guideline clarifications or changes that may be needed because of new real estate agent compensation arrangements that might arise from NAR Commission's litigation. Previously, FHA and the GSE has confirmed that seller payments directly to buyer agents would not count toward caps on interested party contributions. With the potential settlement going into effect in the coming months, we will continue to assess market development for other changes that may be needed in agency guidelines and CFPB rules to ensure any new agent compensation arrangements do not limit access or raise the cost of mortgages. 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.
