The Mortgage Bankers Association has had a hand in some of the biggest decisions that federal housing regulators have made this year and now has a seat “near the head of the table” as the Trump administration moves forward with plans to revamp mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, MBA President and CEO Bob Broeksmit said Monday.
The government may be shut down at the moment, but it’s been a banner year for an industry that’s long pushed for deregulation — and for getting legislation that benefits housing finance through Congress, Broeksmit told mortgage industry leaders attending the group’s annual convention in Las Vegas.
The MBA spent $1.14 million lobbying the federal government in the first half of 2025, according to disclosures tracked by OpenSecrets, a nonprofit research group that tracks money in U.S. politics.
The group, which represents nonbank mortgage lenders, is making its priorities known to leaders at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Federal Housing and Finance Agency (FHFA) and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
Bob Broeksmit
“When the new leaders of HUD, FHFA, and the CFPB took office, we handed each of their teams a day-one list of priority reforms,” Broeksmit said. “Those lists have informed some of the biggest decisions their agencies have made. All told, they’ve taken action on 11 of the most important deregulatory items that we recommended.”
The CFPB is revisiting a rule that prohibits lenders from tying loan officer compensation to a loan’s terms — “music to our ears,” Broeksmit said — and last month HUD reduced and standardized FHA mortgage insurance premiums for multifamily projects.
Top MBA priorities when the government reopens include legislative reforms to fix “structural flaws” in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac‘s business models, easing capital requirements for small community banks, and relaxing prohibitions against kickbacks and unearned fee splitting in the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA)
Broeksmit said the MBA has had “multiple meetings” with Fannie and Freddie’s federal regulator, the FHFA, and the Treasury Department.
“We don’t just have a seat at the table,” Broeksmit said. “We’re near the head of the table — and we’re speaking loud and clear.”
Broeksmit said he likes the tone that the Trump administration has adopted — that any changes to the structure of the mortgage giants will be “informed, careful, and calibrated” so as not to drive up mortgage rates.
He said the Trump administration is also receptive to the MBA’s push to do away with a requirement that lenders selling mortgages to Fannie and Freddie pull borrowers’ credit reports from all three credit bureaus (“tri-merge” reporting).
Three major legislative victories
The MBA has had a hand in shaping three major bills that will help distressed veterans avoid foreclosure, protect consumers from “the scourge of mortgage trigger leads” and preserve tax breaks for homeowners, Broeksmit said.
“It’s hard to express how extraordinary that is. In a good year, we might get a single legislative victory,” Broeksmit said. “It’s almost never a standalone bill — usually, we get our issues and priorities included in bigger, must-pass bills. But most years, we don’t get any legislation at all.”
The VA Home Loan Program Reform Act, signed into law on July 30, “will prevent a nationwide crisis for America’s veterans,” following cancellation of the the VA Servicing Purchase (VASP) foreclosure prevention program earlier this year, he said.
The bill, which allows the VA to offer foreclosure-prevention options to distressed borrowers comparable to those offered by Fannie, Freddie and FHA, is a step forward, but implementation issues remain, Urban Institute analysts said in August.
Broeksmit also highlighted the passage of the Homebuyers Privacy Protection Act, which will put tighter restrictions on mortgage “trigger leads” in March 2026. Loopholes in the law mean credit bureaus will still be able to sell information about mortgage applicants to their current lender, servicer or bank.
Finally, Broeksmit said there was a lot for the real estate and housing finance industry to like about the “One Big Beautifull Bill Act” passed in July, extending tax cuts enacted in 2017.
The bill protected the mortgage interest deduction and capital gains tax exclusions for primary residences from changes that had the potential to “profoundly hurt MBA members and your customers,” he said.
“You were also facing a slew of potential tax hikes, especially for businesses that aren’t registered as C corps,” Broeksmit said.
Industry lobbying
Broeksmit credited the MBA’s political action committee, MORPAC, for the group’s regulatory, policy and legislative victories.
“This year, through MORPAC, we’ve held events with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senator Mark Warner, a key member of the Senate Banking and Finance Committees,” Broeksmit said. “We had one scheduled two weeks ago with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, too, but had to reschedule due to the government shutdown.”
MBA lobbying 1998-H12025
The Mortgage Bankers Association spent $4.1 million on lobbying in 2008, after the subprime mortgage crisis and Great Recession of 2007-2009 spurred a raft of regulations and laws. Source: OpenSecrets.org.
In addition to the MBA’s lobbying efforts, MORPAC spent $2.1 million in the 2023-2024 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets. That included $949,00 to federal candidates’ election campaigns, with 55 percent of that money going to Republicans. The rest went to other PACs ($829,000) and national parties ($210,000).
OpenSecrets estimates the real estate industry as a whole spent $62.2 million on lobbying in the first six months of the year.
The National Association of Realtors was the biggest spender, paying $27.3 million to lobbyists in the first half of the year. NAR’s political action committee, RPAC, spent $18.2 million in the 2023-20244 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets, including $4.2 million to federal candidates’ election campaigns.
Although NAR’s campaign contributions were split evenly between Democrats (49 percent) and Republicans (51 percent), 62 percent of NARPAC’s $4.7 million in independent expenditures (“soft money” spent on behalf of a candidate) supported Republicans.
NAR typically supports incumbents, particularly those who sit on influential committees. The top recipients of RPAC’s independent expenditures in the 2023-2024 election cycle were Rep. Tony Gonzales ($254,890), a Texas Republican who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz ($229,629), who chairs the Senate commerce committee and is a member of the rules, judiciary and foreign relations committees.
NAR also threw $221,878 in soft money behind Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown’s unsuccessful 2024 Senate reelection bid, and $167,125 in support of Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey, who was also defeated in his bid for a fourth Senate term.
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