What’s Next in Washington? Industry Leaders Weigh In
(From left: Bob Broeksmit, Nanci Weissgold, Isaac Boltansky and Faith Schwartz. Photo by Anneliese Mahoney.)
DALLAS–“From HUD to CFPB to the chairs of key committees on Capitol Hill, MBA is bracing for big change,” said Mortgage Bankers Association President and CEO Bob Broeksmit, CMB, in a session on post-election analysis at MBA’s 2025 Servicing Solutions Conference & Expo.
“Fortunately, we’re ready,” Broeksmit continued.
But what big changes are going to come out of a second President Donald Trump administration, particularly as it pertains to housing and the mortgage industry?
To start, there are a few broad principles to keep in mind, per Isaac Boltansky, Managing Director and Director of Policy Research, BTIG.
In general, this is “year five” of the Trump administration, and we’re going to see a continuation and amplification of many themes from the first term, he said.
Speaking about priorities, “the ball game is tax cuts,” Boltansky said, predicting we’ll see a large bill (or set of bills) passed this year on that front. And there are some ideas about what may be in it. He said he thinks the 199A tax deduction will be extended, for example.
Nanci Weissgold, Co-Chair of the Financial Services Group at Alston & Bird, pointed out that there must be advocacy from the industry on a forthcoming tax bill. There’s lots of turnover on Capitol Hill, she said, and current staffers may not have been in their roles for the last round of advocacy.
“We need to educate them early, and we need to educate them often,” Weissgold said. She also is the 2025-2026 chair of MBA’s political action committee, MORPAC.
In terms of regulatory predictions, Weissgold noted the environment is shifting, quickly.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is essentially paused on much activity, for one. “I think that we’re probably all in agreement on this panel that the CFPB isn’t going to go away, but it could get weakened, defanged–less of an aggressive agency,” she said.
She also posited that we might see more expansive enforcement on the state level, particularly in states with democratic leadership.
Whether we’ll see an end to GSE conservatorship has been much-speculated in these early days of the Trump administration.
“My answer is, it is possible that GSEs will exit conservatorship,” Boltanksy said. “I don’t think yet it’s probable.”
He noted there are multiple hurdles to the end of conservatorship–procedural, political and policy. While all of those can be addressed in different forms, they may pose challenges for an end to the current setup.
With the COVID-19 pandemic narrowly in the rearview mirror, Broeksmit queried Faith Schwartz, Founder and CEO of Housing Finance Strategies, on what we can expect to see in the arena of loss mitigation.
Schwartz complimented both the industry and the relevant government agencies for their actions during the pandemic. But, she’s not quite sure what might be next, and noted there’s lots of questions out there, like what’s next for the Veterans Affairs Servicing Purchase Program.
“I think we need to see the No. 2. and No. 3 appointments in these agencies and then through MBA mostly, lobby hard to make sure they fix what’s not completely broken, but helpful to the servicers, so it doesn’t keep breaking the back of how to do the business,” Schwartz said.
Supply of housing was a hot topic–from both sides–during the 2024 election. Schwartz said that there’s agreement from both Democrats and Republicans that the supply side is currently broken.
“It’s getting a little better, but we need a lot of focus on that,” Schwartz said. There’s a lot of developing technology and potential there, she said.
Broeksmit brought up the concept of building on federal land–oft-cited during the election. “Sure everything helps, but it’s not a panacea,” Boltansky said. “The housing supply crisis isn’t caused by one single issue, right? So there is no single panacea.”
