“The path to home ownership lay before him, smooth and attainable as never before. All Eric Powell had to do was secure a small loan. He had a steady job, a decent credit score and a wife who happened to work for a bank: What could possibly go wrong?”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Senate Banking Committee will take up a measure that may determine whether millions of low- to moderate-income consumers will be able to buy or sell modestly priced homes.
The Preserving Access to Manufactured Housing Act (HR 650 and S 682) addresses the unintended consequences of the Dodd-Frank Act, passed to protect consumers in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis.
According to former Congressman Barney Frank, the act’s co-sponsor, Dodd-Frank was never intended to apply to manufactured housing. Yet the regulations established by the federal agency created by Dodd-Frank have cut off access to much of the small, specialized loans that have long provided a path to home ownership for low- to moderate-income families.
The House of Representatives recently passed HR 650 with bi-partisan support, but a fight now looms in the Senate, where companion bill S 682 comes before the banking committee on May 22, 2015.
The stiff opposition comes from a surprising corner: consumer advocacy groups and the federal Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) — who strongly support manufactured housing as an important option for low-to moderate-income home buyers. But they believe the provisions of the proposed act will hurt consumers.
Are they right? Or do current provisions in Dodd-Frank — the ones that HR 650 and S 682 seek to correct — harm the very consumers these groups have vowed to protect? The Powell family’s story answers those questions. Read More from award winning journalist, Jan Hollingsworth at the link below.
MHLivingNews.com is the leading consumer-focused trade publication for the manufactured housing industry.
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L. A. “Tony” Kovach
MHLivingNews.com
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