MBA Newslinks Archive

“The housing bust hit condo values hard, and over the past few years, buying a condo wasn’t always considered a good investment compared to a single-family home. But that’s changing, and condos increasingly represent a strong-performing, often affordable choice, particularly for first-time buyers interested both in homeownership and in keeping a lower-maintenance, city lifestyle.”
–Zillow Chief Economist Svenja Gudell.

“Borrowing and lending in commercial and multifamily real estate markets is strong. Interest rates that have stayed lower longer than most anticipated, and continued growth in property incomes and values are all pushing mortgage origination levels higher.”
–MBA Vice President of Commercial Real Estate Research Jamie Woodwell.

“Opens Doors is thrilled at the incredible outpouring of support from so many different corners of the real estate finance and housing industry. The nation’s largest homebuilders, along with large depository institutions, community banks, independent mortgage bankers, residential firms, commercial/multifamily firms and many more companies and individuals all made generous contributions to our efforts.” 
–Debra Still, CMB, chairman of the MBA Opens Doors Foundation and president and CEO of Pulte Mortgage.

“This industry has a regulator in charge of enforcing RESPA and this regulator is telling our industry they don’t like MSAs and don’t think you should be doing them. The issue we all face together is, ‘what do we do now?’ Well, we know we have a regulator that says ‘I don’t want you doing those things.’ I think you’re crazy at this stage not to listen to your regulator.”–Mitch Kider, chairman and managing partner with Weiner Brodsky Kider PC, Washington, D.C.

“The Federal Home Loan Bank System is a critical part of our housing infrastructure, providing its members with a strong, reliable source of capital to serve the housing needs of their communities. This legislation would preserve today’s membership and prevent costly disruption by ensuring community banks and captive insurers remain members of their regional Home Loan Bank.”
–MBA President and CEO David Stevens, CMB. 

“When we think about homeownership, we tend to think about single-family; and when we think about rental, we tend to think about multifamily. That’s not necessarily the case. As we talk about changes in the homeownership rate going forward, it appears that a lot of the shift would still be driven by single-family housing, but not necessarily just single-family ownership.” 
–MBA Vice President of Commercial/Multifamily Research Jamie Woodwell.

“A lot of cyber security boils down to a really basic principal: Don’t talk to strangers. Most of our lines don’t do business in Eastern Europe, so why should your network talk to them? Turn that off and it takes care of about 85 percent of the threat right there.”
–Fannie Mae vice president and chief information security officer Anthony Johnson. 

“Under these rulings, a $500 lien can take priority over an $800,000 mortgage.”
–Scott Nowak, assistant director of state government affairs with the Mortgage Bankers Association, on recent court rulings that have given homeowners association liens legal priority over first mortgages.

“We always looked at mortgages this way: our products are not that different from anyone else’s products. It’s not like some firm has air conditioning on 30-year loans and another doesn’t, and since the Mortgage Armageddon, there are even fewer products. So it’s not the product. Price is taken away, product differentiation is taken away, so Quicken Loans competes on the way we deliver that home loan to the customer.”
–Quicken Loans Founder and Chairman Dan Gilbert.

“We have become increasingly more optimistic about the home purchase market. Refinance activity will continue to decline as there are few remaining households that can benefit from an interest rate reduction and because interest rates will gradually begin to rise from historic lows in the coming years.”–MBA Chief Economist Mike Fratantoni.