Friday, July 30, 2010
Dear MBA Member,
As Congress raced to finish its work before its August recess, housing bills were front and center on the agenda of the House of Representatives. The bullets below (and the attached Advocacy Update) highlight some of the major issues we faced immediately on the heels of the President signing the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act last week. While August 1st usually signals the start of a quiet month in Washington, DC, this couldn’t be further from the truth for MBA. We are here continuing to plow through the Dodd-Frank bill, identifying the dozens of regulations that will be coming in the next 18 months that will materially impact the way our single-family, multifamily and commercial members do business. In the coming weeks, we will begin to initiate strategies and mechanisms that will allow us analyze and respond to draft regulations, with your input, in order to maximize the impact we can have in shaping regulations that will foster a healthy real estate finance industry.
For other news this week, please see the below highlights.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please email me at officeofthepresident@mortgagebankers.org
Yours Very Truly,
John A. Courson
President and Chief Executive Officer
Mortgage Bankers Association.
Highlights for This Week
• On Tuesday, MBA’s Commercial/Multifamily Regulation AB Task Force members and senior staff met with staff at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) responsible for drafting Regulation AB, a proposed rule governing the offering process, disclosure, and reporting for asset-backed securities. The meeting was a critical opportunity for MBA to advance its position with the SEC staff in advance of the August 2, 2010 deadline for public comment. MBA will be submitting formal comments early next week that address commercial/multifamily and residential issues of the proposed rule in time to meet that deadline.
• On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed a bill, advanced by MBA, that would increase FHA’s commitment authority for its multifamily programs by $5 billion for the remainder of the fiscal year. Without this increase, FHA will exhaust its current authority sometime in mid-August and be forced to stop insuring multifamily loans until the new fiscal year begins October. We activated the Mortgage Action Alliance with an action alert early on Wednesday to help garner support for this important bill.
• Earlier this week, MBA joined several other trade associations in a comment to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on an interpretative rule applying RESPA’s section eight prohibitions to homeowner warranty companies’ dealings with real estate brokers. The comment expressed concerns about the interpretation because of the questions it raises; its interpretation could not be limited; and its analysis concerning the distinction between permissible compensation for actual services and illegal referral fees was new. For these reasons, the comment asked that HUD establish these rules through a full rulemaking.
• Earlier today, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5981, a bill that will permit the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) to charge higher annual premiums, raising the statutory cap from 0.55 percent to 1.55 percent. The legislation is nearly identical to one of the key provisions of the FHA Reform Act, which passed the House in June but has yet to be considered by the Senate.
• On June 28, MBA released the Second Quarter 2010 Quarterly Survey of Commercial/Multifamily Mortgage Bankers Originations. The Survey shows that second quarter commercial and multifamily mortgage originations were flat from last year’s levels, and increased 35 percent from first quarter volumes. To view the full release and survey, click here.
Spotlight
Mortgage Action Alliance, Inc.
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