🔹 NAMB's 2025 Legislative Priorities: What Mortgage Brokers Need to Know 🔹

In this must-listen episode of Val’s Vibe, Valerie Saunders breaks down the National Association of Mortgage Brokers’ (NAMB) key legislative initiatives for 2025. From fighting to regulate trigger leads and advocating for Gold Star Spouse benefits to modernizing VA home loans, addressing flood insurance reauthorization, and tackling the skyrocketing cost of credit reports—Valerie covers it all!

Plus, learn how you can get involved and make an impact at NAMB’s upcoming Legislative & Regulatory Conference in Washington, D.C., from March 31 to April 2. Tune in to stay informed, protect your business, and help shape the future of the mortgage industry!

🎧 Listen now and be part of the movement! #ValsVibe #NAMB #MortgageLegislation #TriggerLeads #VAHomeLoans #FloodInsurance #CreditReportReform 

Transcript

  📍 Hey everybody, this is Valerie Saunders. Welcome to another edition of Val's Vibe. If you saw my last episode, I talked about that this was going to be a two part session. On my last episode, I went over Some of the regulatory initiatives that the National Association of Mortgage Brokers were working on in 2025 and this current congressional session.

And I mentioned that on my next episode, we will be looking at some of our legislative initiatives. So for those of you that are not familiar with me I am currently the chief executive strategist of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers. I had the good fortune to serve as president from 2023 to 2024.

I've been on NAMB's board of directors since 2012. Prior to that I served three terms as president with the Florida Association of Mortgage Professionals. I do currently own a mortgage broker business and also a title company, and one of the Overwhelming passions that I have had in my mortgage career is serving mortgage professionals.

Whether that is from an educational perspective or from a government affairs aspect. So when I was with FAMP I did actively work on state bills. I was president of F. A. M. P. during the time when we implemented the minimum standards of safe into our state lending laws. And I did also serve several terms as government affairs chair for NAMB working on, Many iterations of the trigger lease language, as well as many other pieces of legislation. NAMB is about to come upon their annual legislative conference. This year, it's March 31st to April 2nd in Washington, D. C. If you are interested in attending, I'm going to give you a little bit more information on how you can register at the end of today's episode.

But What I wanted to do is talk about NAMB's legislative initiatives that we have for 2025. How do we come up with these priorities that we as an organization champion or focus on yearly? It is a collective discussion and decision. NAMB does have a very active Government Affairs Committee that is we have multiple individuals who serve to be a member of the Government Affairs Committee.

Of course, you must be a member of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers and have a passion for GA. If you are interested in being a member please feel free to contact me. If you're also interested in Besides joining, becoming a member of the Government Affairs Committee, also please contact me.

My NAMB email address is V A L S A U N at N A M B dot org, valsaun@namb.org, and I'm happy to chat with you about the benefits of membership and also how to become a part of this important committee. These are the legislative initiatives for NAMB for 2025. Now, of course. This current congressional session, it's not even a month old.

W hether there are legislative initiatives or our regulatory priorities, they are fluid. So if new legislation gets introduced, if there are changes that happen within the mortgage community that can only be fixed through legislative action or that need to be reviewed and discussed and commented on and championed from a regulatory perspective, of course, we're going to add those.

NAMB is really the watchdog for the mortgage brokerage industry and we have been since 1973. These are our current five legislative initiatives. So number one to regulate trigger leads. This we, NAMB has been working on trigger leads legislation actively for the last three congressional sessions.

Of course, we will continue to work on it until trigger leads legislation is passed. We have all, as mortgage loan originators, had consumers who we have, are currently working with. We have pulled their credit to initiate that transaction. And what happens? They start getting a ton of phone calls. They get emails.

They're just inundated and overwhelmed with these unsolicited calls, emails, texts from competitors, really leading to mistrust in the mortgage process. Some borrowers even mistakenly act on these misleading offers because of promises of better rates or terms, only to potentially end up with unfavorable loans.

Additionally, the practice of trigger leads really does create an increase in the risk of identity theft because it exposes our consumers sensitive personal information to really bad actors within the mortgage community. What is a further impact on the industry? It really does erode that hard earned trust between brokers and consumers, which is a really critical piece in the highly personalized mortgage process.

Many lenders face challenges retaining clients when competitors use trigger leads because they can sometimes result in misleading offers or confusion for borrowers. I'm sure we have all had at least one experience or know of a fellow loan originator that has had an experience where a consumer has been contacted as part of a trigger and that individual has basically misled them into thinking they actually work for your company and got that person to agree to sign another  borrower authorization to have credit pulled just so that they can then step in and try to take that consumer's loan away.

Having trigger leads legislation really does help ensure borrowers information remains private. The mortgage process is transparent. And, we do see that.  similar consumer privacy laws, like those in the telemarketing industry do have a successful precedent for trigger leads legislation.

And so we're going to work really hard with other like minded trade associations, such as MBA for this congressional session to hopefully finally pass trigger leads legislation. Talking point number two is  advocating for Gold Star Spouse Act to honor military families. If you're not familiar with the term Gold Star Spouse, this is a surviving spouse of a fallen service member.

That surviving spouse or Gold Star Spouse does have the ability to access VA home loan benefits that their fallen service member spouse would have been able to take advantage of had they not been deceased. However, those benefits stop if that gold star spouse chooses to remarry. Now many times.

, individuals who are married, their spouses unfortunately pass away at a young age. That surviving spouse should not have to stop their lives and not move on to potentially marry again just in order to ensure that they are continued to be able to access VA home loan benefits. This particular bill that has was introduced in prior congressional sessions, it will be introduced again, would eliminate this unnecessary hardship.

Our legislative solution is to pass Gold Star Spouse legislation to ensure surviving military spouses do have the ability to retain VA loan benefits for life regardless of remarriage, really acknowledging their sacrifice and helping promote financial stability. Number three NAMB has been working on with our VA subcommittee, another committee that if you're interested and you're a NAMB member that you potentially could become a part of on modernizing the VA.

Our VA subcommittee put together. Language or legislation called the VA Modernization Act. We are actively looking for sponsors in the House and the Senate to hopefully introduce this act in 2025. It would have three main updates to the VA Home Loan Program that would really simplify processes, address modern needs, and then provide some new options for veterans.

So number one, it would update maximum loan guaranty limits. So what this would do is it would simplify guaranty entitlement calculations that currently have multiple paragraphs that cover very small loans that are really no longer available in the mortgage market. Veterans would also retain a guaranty of 25 percent of the loan amount for loans without prior entitlement and veterans with previously used, but unrestored entitlement.

The maximum guaranty will be 25 percent of the Freddie Mac conforming loan limit reduced by any previously used entitlement. Now, number two of the VA Home Loan Modernization Act would include energy efficient mortgage programs. Energy efficient mortgages have been a program since its inception in 1992, but it has not, VA language has not been updated since.

then to track the cost of construction. So this would make energy efficient programs permanent. It would also update the maximum approved improvement amount to $15,000 as long as the increase in monthly payments is offset by utility cost savings. Number three, would establish a veterans equity conversion mortgage or a veterans reverse mortgage.

So this would allow refinancing a veteran's home to allow financing a property with no outstanding loans in order to implement the changes for a veterans equity conversion mortgage. These reverse mortgages have been around for a while on the FHA side. Of course, they assist aging individuals.

And why should an aging veteran not have the similar opportunity to take advantage of reverse mortgage benefits? Those are the three sections of the VA Modernization Act. As I said this was worked on by NAMB's VA Subcommittee. We are actively looking for bill sponsors, both in the House and Senate side, so stay tuned as we get more information on when that potential legislation will be filed.

Number four is the push for reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program. We've been talking about this for a really long time. Unfortunately, Flood insurance is just a can that's been kicked down the road for many years. It's really time for the National Flood Insurance Program to be reauthorized.

Homeowners and flood prone areas are currently facing skyrocketing flood insurance premiums, which really make homeownership unaffordable. Additionally, a lapse in NFIPs authorization prevents borrowers from closing on homes, requiring flood insurance, derailing transactions, and harming local economies.

Without NFIP, lenders would face increased risk exposure. Brokers would lose transactions due to delayed or canceled closings. Rising premiums also disproportionately affect the low income and minority communities, just further widening the homeowner's insurance gap. NAMB's legislative solution support long term reauthorization of NFIP with measures to include capping annual premium increases, providing subsidies for low income borrowers, and also investing in flood mitigation efforts to reduce further risks.

Number five, addressing the rising cost of credit reports to protect consumers and mortgage brokers. In 2023, FICO significantly increased what their fees are that they pass on to the three credit reporting agencies. Of course, the three credit reporting agencies then passed on increased cost of credit to credit report providers.

What has that done? In the last 10 years, we see credit reports going from $25 to now over $100. These credit reporting agencies and these increases have significantly increased the cost of credit. That really does place a financial burden on borrowers and mortgage professionals. Unfortunately, Loan originators don't have a choice but to pass these costs on to borrowers, which just further increase the upfront costs for applying for a mortgage.

This disproportionately impacts first time buyers, low income borrowers, and can sometimes create an unnecessary barrier to entry for home ownership. In addition these increased costs sometimes are absorbed by brokers and lenders. Just further squeezing margins and making it harder to serve clients effectively.

Additionally, inconsistent pricing can create unpredictability in the loan process. What is NAMB's solution? We are advocating for oversight and regulation of credit reporting agencies in order to cap fees to ensure affordability and predictability, increase transparency in credit reporting costs and practices, and promote competition among credit reporting agencies to prevent monopolistic pricing.

So these are NAMB's five current legislative talking points. I mentioned earlier in this episode that NAMB does have a an upcoming event, our Legislative and Regulatory Conference. I'm going to share my screen right now so that you can, if you are interested, see where you can go to register. So if you go to namb.or/lrc you will go to this page. This is our legislative and regulatory conference page. It is free to attend. Simply click on the button here, fill out your information. And you're set to register. This is an in person event. It is at the Washington Marriott Capitol Hill. It is a multi day event.

On March 31, we'll have a welcome reception for everyone. On Tuesday, April 1, we will have a variety of speakers. In the past, we have had the FHFA Director, HUD Director, representatives from VA, NMLS, legislators, just a variety of speakers. And what this does is it gives you, as a mortgage professional, the opportunity to ask questions, to visit and network with like minded individuals who are all looking for the same thing. We're looking for help for our consumers to make the origination process, simpler to have more programs, to have the process be easy, transparent, yet secure for our consumers. And through in person lobbying, we're able to do that.

NAMB has thrived on grassroots efforts by our members at past legislative events, and this event will be no different. So once again, that is March 31 to April 2nd. Please go to namb.org/lrc And if you're looking to register, just click straight on that members register free button.

You can make your reservations at the hotel. There are a limited number of guest rooms, so if you are interested in attending, please click on that Marriott reservations button and make your reservation today. So I appreciate the opportunity to over these last few episodes to share with you the important work of NAMB.

And I look forward to speaking with you on the next episode of Val's Vibe.