Val’s Vibe – Episode 10: The Power of Advocacy in the Mortgage Industry

In this episode, Valerie Saunders, a dedicated mortgage broker and passionate advocate, dives deep into the importance of advocacy in the mortgage industry. She breaks down how the National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB) plays a crucial role in protecting both industry professionals and consumers. Valerie highlights key regulatory changes NAMB has been pushing for—from loan level pricing adjustments and income thresholds to refinancing rules and credit report costs—all aimed at making homeownership more accessible.

She also shares why getting involved in advocacy matters and encourages listeners to join her at NAMB’s upcoming Legislative and Regulatory Conference in Washington, DC. If you’re in the mortgage space, this is an episode you won’t want to miss! Tune in and get inspired to make a difference in the industry. 🎙️🏡✨ 

Transcript

  📍 Hey, everybody. This is Valerie Saunders. Welcome to another edition of Val's Vibe. I thought I would take this episode and next week's episode and focus on advocacy. I think advocating on behalf of your profession, on behalf of a cause or initiative, or, the country's consumers is a very important part of what you can do to contribute to not just the betterment of consumers and individuals today, but well into the future. And as most of you probably know, I do advocate quite often on behalf of the mortgage broker community. I have been, choosing to do that for the last probably 20 years whether it was in my role as president with the Florida Association of Mortgage Professionals, where I did serve as president 3 different terms or when I was a board member and then ultimately president, and now chief executive strategist of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers. And quite honestly, just somebody that has been within the mortgage broker community. I do currently own a mortgage broker business. I also own a title company. And so I have a lot of opportunities of communicating directly with consumers and hopefully advocating on their behalf and on the industry's behalf to help people achieve the goals of home ownership, but also to do it responsibly and also to, hopefully, expand opportunities for the industry and consumers to achieve financial goals. So I wanted to take today's episode and focus on regulatory initiatives. So as part of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, one of the things that we do is advocacy. NAMB, for those of you that are not aware, was founded in 1973 and really was created through a desire for a group of Florida mortgage brokers to advocate on behalf of their industry and their consumers.

If you think about 1973, we had the initiation of RESPA and TILA a lot of federal changes that were happening that really completely reshaped the landscape of the way that, Lending was done within the United States. And over the course of years, obviously, although RESPA and TILA are still in effect they have changed, they have modified, and a lot of that those change and modifications were done through people like myself and you advocating on behalf of their industry and their consumers.

So there are really different ways that you can advocate. Of course, we think of legislative advocacy on a state level or on a federal level. There is a house. There is a Senate bills are introduced their they go through the committee process. Hopefully they make their way on to the House and Senate floor where they get approved and then sent on to either the governor or the president for them to sign and have those bills enacted into law.

But there is another component, which is regulatory change and regulatory change. Is looking at change through government agencies, whether that is FHFA, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, or the CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or FHA, or VA, USDA any of these agencies. Governmental regulators that are overseeing legislation and also not just that, but they're also creating guidelines that we are required, we as loan originators are required to follow or may be subjected to as part of the lending process and this year, NAMB has  Two different initiatives.

One is focusing on regulatory change. Another is focusing on legislative change. And so with this episode, I want to focus on the four key items that NAMB has as really driving regulatory change in 2025. As we see through the trigger leads bill that is now going into a fourth congressional session.

Legislative change is a slow process. It's an arduous process. It is a multi layered multi step process that can take as we see with trigger leads many years before it potentially will become law. On the other side FHFA or  FHA, VA, CFPB, USDA, those regulators create underwriting guidelines and those things can change much more fluid, much quicker and can have, quite honestly, in some cases, a greater immediate impact on helping consumers and helping loan originators and then the last item is just getting people into homes being able to refinance, take advantage of that wealth that they have built up within the equity in their homes.

So I wanted to focus on so NAMB is focusing on these four items and I wanted to take this opportunity today to go over those for regulatory changes that NAMB is advocating for. Number one is the removal of loan level price adjustments on investment properties and second homes. Currently LLPAs do exist that increase borrowing costs, discourage investment in rental housing, limit opportunities for buyers to own vacation or secondary properties, and so by eliminating these LLPAs on investment properties and second homes, it would really have an immediate impact in lowering costs for buyers, making it easier for people to purchase and maintain investment properties It could also potentially lead to a larger housing supply, especially in the rental market.

And really that would help tackle affordability issues and give renters more affordable options. Number two is to increase the area median income threshold from 80 percent to 100 percent for home ready and home possible loans. We have, NAMB has been advocating for this. For at least the last two years that I can recall off the top of my head currently that 80 percent AMI limit restricts access to favorable terms for moderate income families who may be struggling with affordability. By increasing that threshold to 100 percent AMI, it's going to expand eligibility for those home ready and home possible programs, would allow more families to access lower down payment requirements and reduce mortgage insurance costs.

This adjustment would also help close the homeownership gap by offering more equitable access to affordable financing. Number three is change the GSE refinancing rule from 12 months to six months. So currently Fannie and Freddie have a 12 month restriction on individuals being able to refinance their loans that were used for acquisition.

This really does limit a homeowner's ability to take advantage of any improved market conditions and lower their interest rates in a timely manner. We always talk about taking advantage of the equity that you have built up in your home. Unfortunately having to wait 12 months may mean that you are continuing to pay high credit card interest rates.

Maybe you are it's preventing you from either paying off student loan debt or limiting your ability to assist your soon to be college aged teen from being able to pay off student loan debt. Get a student loan or use the equity in your home instead of getting a student loan to be able to pay for college tuition.

Really reducing this waiting period to 6 months is going to provide more flexibility for homeowners to refinance when rates do drop. And of course, ultimately saving money on monthly payments and enhancing their financial stability. And then finally, and this item really is addressed on both sides, regulatory and legislatively, of course, today, I'm just focusing on regulatory is the recent high increases in credit report costs.

We all are aware. That really send in the last 10 years credit report costs have increased by more than 200%. If we think about tread when we're talking about, there is commentary back in 2015 in tread that references the cost of a credit report. At 25 fast forward 10 years later due to increased fees from FICO increased fees from the three credit reporting agencies, which, of course, is forcing those credit providers that mortgage brokers are able to obtain credit reports from now we're at 100 or more.

So these significant rises in credit report costs really are adding to the financial burden on consumers. and potentially slowing the loan approval process. Most mortgage broker businesses are small businesses. It's very difficult to absorb the cost of initially pulling a credit report. When it's a hundred dollars, I know there's soft pulls and there's hard pulls.

And we also do those things to limit trigger leads as well. But it's really time for the industry to start advocating for fair pricing and increase transparency and credit report fees to really assure affordability and efficiency by maybe some regulatory intervention to help lower those costs.

May mean may help maintain a streamlined loan process, reduce barriers for borrowers, and also allow lenders to operate more effectively. The National Association of Mortgage Brokers, as well as myself, just as an individual, not just as a a member, a past president, and now chief executive strategist.

really believes that these regulatory changes collectively will enhance affordability, expand access to home ownership, improve market conditions for consumers and industry stakeholders, and ultimately create a healthier and more inclusive housing market. How can you help? I want to share with everyone the the advocacy page on the NAMB website.

So I'm going to share my screen here.

And this is the advi advocacy page on NAMB's website. So if you've not been to our website, it's NAMB. org. You can click directly on the advocacy tab. If you click on it, it will drop down. But if you click on advocacy again, it will take you directly to this page. This will give you some information on NAMBPAC, our political action committee.

I'll talk about that more in detail in another episode. We'll take you to our calls to action. We'll take you to our legislative action fund, similar to NAMBPAC but maybe with a slightly different purpose. But it will also show you our 2025. Legislative priorities and regulatory initiatives.

So the legislative priorities are going to be the talking points that NAMB will use when we go to Capitol Hill and advocate on behalf of ourselves and our consumers. You can visit this page and click directly on here. To download a copy of those talking points, the regulatory side, you can click directly on this link.

It will download a page. That will go over those same regulatory initiatives that I spoke about earlier. I also want to personally invite everyone to attend. NAMB's Legislative and Regulatory Conference. If you go to events and click on NAMB LRC, Legislative and Regulatory Conference, it'll bring up this page.

Members can register for free. Just click directly on that link. You can register to attend. It is March 31 to April 2nd at the Washington Marriott Capitol Hill in Washington, D. C. we do have reservations currently available at this location at a reduced rate. If you have never been to Washington, D. C.

and advocated on your behalf, I highly recommend it. We start off the event with a full day of legislative and regulatory speakers last year. Some of our speakers were F. H. F. A. Director Sandra Thompson. We had the Secretary of HUD, Adrian Todman. We had somebody from VA. We had the CEO of NMLS.

We had various legislators. And it really is an an excellent way for you to be fully immersed in what it is. Thank you. You are capable as a mortgage professional and advocating on your behalf and your consumers. So we have that full day of legislative and regulatory speakers day to and this and for this event, it's going to be on April 2nd, we go to Capitol Hill, we take those talking points and we meet directly with legislators.

Whether it is your specific legislator, maybe legislators in within your state or other states and we talk about the the challenges and the importance of these particular legislative topics and how they would benefit, of course, the mortgage industry, but most importantly, ultimately, our consumers.

So if you have not been to Washington, D. C. and had the taken advantage of the ability to advocate on your behalf and your consumer's behalf, I highly recommend that you attend. I hope that you found this information useful. And if you have any questions please reach out to me.

My email address my, I'll give you my personal email address. It's valsaun, V A L S A U N at gmail. com. I'm happy to answer any questions share as much information as I possibly can. I want to empower you and help you empower yourself so that you can empower your fellow loan originators, your company.

And most importantly, your consumers. I hope you found this beneficial and I look forward to speaking to everyone again on the next episode of Val's Vibe. Hope you have a great day.