The following is excerpted from remarks prepared for delivery by the Mortgage Bankers Association’s President and CEO Bob Broeksmit, CMB, at the 2025 Secondary and Capital Markets Conference:
My message today is simple. I’m going to give you the case for optimism.
And while many pundits are saying that the sky is falling, we’re actually seeing some critical reforms that will lift our industry—and America—for decades to come.
This quiet progress is no accident. It’s the direct result of MBA’s advocacy.
We don’t do alarmist statements. We go straight to the policymakers who matter.
We tell them what you need. And we help them find a path forward, benefiting your businesses and the borrowers you serve.
We saw an opening immediately after the last election. We quickly reached out to the presidential transition team and had some great discussions. And since the new administration started in January, we’ve had countless conversations with the White House, Congress, and key agency staff. You’ll be pleased to know that this White House understands housing and real estate finance—and their policies reflect it.
That fact was on full display last month, at our National Advocacy Conference in D.C. The keynote speaker was the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Scott Turner.
After his talk, MBA leaders and I had a good conversation with him. He wants strong secondary markets and a well-functioning mortgage market overall.
The same goes for senior staff throughout the administration. Look no further than FHA and Ginnie Mae, where important leadership positions have been filled by familiar faces who have deep policy experience and industry knowledge, including at MBA. And while the next commissioner of FHA hasn’t been announced, we expect that he will be a fellow industry practitioner.
This is a welcome change. We’re now dealing with leaders who know the importance of prudence. We have fewer worries of overregulation and policy proposals that hurt the industry and ultimately increase borrower costs.
On the contrary: Washington is now focused on empowering you to help even more Americans at an even higher level.
This new reality is clear in the deregulatory actions that have swept through D.C. in the past few months.
A good example is HUD’s decision to waive implementation of its floodplain rule. That regulation would have imposed a massive cost on single-family and multifamily properties nationwide, making financing more costly and pushing home ownership out of reach for even more borrowers. While the floodplain rule is still on the books, we’re pushing the administration to repeal it in full.
The same goes for the new energy standards for homes built with FHA and USDA financing.
The standards would have added tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of new homes, and we told HUD they had to go.
They’ve now delayed the standards by at least six months. Once again, we’re calling for a full repeal, and we’re optimistic that we’ll succeed.
FHA has also accelerated the adoption of a permanent loss mitigation waterfall, which will benefit borrowers and lower risk to the insurance fund.
At FHFA, Director Pulte has rescinded the advisory bulletin that essentially turned Fannie and Freddie into consumer protection regulators by directing them to conduct UDAP compliance reviews on their customers. That was a bad idea to begin with, but now it’s no longer a threat.
Then there’s the CFPB.
Over the past few years, as we all know, the Bureau adopted a slew of regulations, policies, and guidance without even going through the rulemaking process.
We’re now working very closely with the current leadership at CFPB, including Mark Calabria, who oversees operations until a new Director is confirmed by the Senate. We’re urging them to either fix broken policies or roll them back altogether.
The CFPB is listening, which is clear in its recent decision to repeal the duplicative and unnecessary non-bank registry. And while we’re continuing to push for more de-regulation, we’re also pointing out that not everything needs to go.
Some CFPB guidance is helpful to both the primary and secondary markets, so it doesn’t make sense to take a sledgehammer to everything.
When the Bureau recently reversed most of the guidance it had issued during previous administrations, it retained the ones we had identified as being helpful in your efforts to comply with the rules.
I made the same point to Director Pulte after his confirmation. I said we don’t want more government than we need, but we do need some government to keep the market humming.
Thankfully, this commonsense approach guides the Administration’s deregulatory agenda, and MBA will keep advocating for the relief that you and your borrowers need.
This red-tape rollback is very important. But the philosophy behind it matters even more.
At the end of the day, the Administration is returning agencies to their statutory mandates. They’re putting regulators back in their proper lanes, as established by federal law.
At MBA, we welcome this move because it means more certainty, clarity, and stability for you. Every agency was created with a specific mission.
Yet many, if not most of them, have overstepped their bounds in recent years. Sometimes, they got fixated on political fads instead of sound policy. Other times, they claimed powers they simply don’t have.
Either way, the result has been “mission creep” that distracts agencies from their core jobs. But the current Administration has said “no more.”
They’re directing regulators to return to boosting building and financing activity, which should have been the focus all along.
A great example is what Director Pulte has done at FHFA. In one of his earliest moves, he rescinded the order that Fannie and Freddie certify lender compliance with laws on unfair or deceptive practices.
As MBA has repeatedly made clear, the GSEs don’t have the authority to enforce those laws—the Federal Trade Commission does. If that order were still in place, it would have added confusion and costs to the lending process. We’re grateful that Director Pulte listened to us and delivered for you.
I also want to say a word of praise for MBA’s Chair, Laura Escobar. She’s been very vocal with Fannie and Freddie about how they need to be more agile and responsive to lenders.
Specifically, she’s said they need to do a better job of supporting your efforts to better serve customers. The GSEs have taken note of this feedback, and we’ve noticed significant improvements in recent months. And across Washington, we’re seeing a much bigger emphasis on growing housing and the mortgage market.
This shift in focus also helps explain some of the federal downsizing you’ve seen.
Many MBA members have asked me why the GSEs and regulators are letting go of so many staff. I think it’s fair to say that not all the cuts have been necessary. But as we’re hearing from those inside the Administration, smaller teams will help keep agencies focused on doing their statutorily-mandated jobs—and giving you the space to do your job.
Whether it’s despite these cuts or because of them, the GSEs are moving in the right direction. And I also want to note that the GSEs may finally be moving toward the end of conservatorship.
I don’t have to tell you that releasing Fannie and Freddie has been the elephant in the room for 15 years.
It will continue to be that way for the immediate future, because in both private meetings and public comments, the administration has said that while it’s on their radar, it’s not a priority. But we’ve also heard from Treasury Secretary Bessent and Director Pulte that they won’t allow a release that results in higher mortgage rates and costs for borrowers.
This is music to our ears. In the months ahead, we’ll continue to work with the White House and Congress to ensure that release is done thoughtfully, without disrupting the capital markets or the housing market.
It’s time to get this done—and it’s time to do it right.
Everything I’ve mentioned so far deals with government-related lending and capital sources. But I also want to make clear that we see an opening to revitalize the private market.
We’re in talks with the Administration about making it easier for banks to keep loans on their balance sheets and securitize mortgages that aren’t eligible for federal programs. We’re also working closely with prudential regulators to ease capital standards.
In the last administration, we helped prevent the imposition of Basel III, and this administration is receptive to ending other punitive treatment of banks.
Our ultimate goal is simple: We need to restore a flourishing private market to complement the government-supported market —because that’s what best for borrowers.
As I close, I hope I’ve left you with the same sense of optimism that we have at MBA. We’re living through a time of necessary deregulation.
We’re seeing regulators turn back to their core mission of boosting building and mortgage activity. And we’re hoping to make real progress toward the revitalization of the private market.
We’ll continue to advocate for the reforms you need. And we’ll keep moving the ball forward, quietly and tirelessly, day after day.
The work we’re doing won’t always make the headlines.
But it will allow you to make even more headway in serving your customers and boosting our economy.
It’s a privilege to represent you, and it’s a pleasure to deliver results for you. And I promise that MBA will keep doing just that in the days ahead.
Thank you.
