About Missing Passage of Preserving Access

The word is out.  The MHI backed bill won’t be included in the omnibus appropriations package that will be passed soon. My view is that the Preserving Access  bill never had a prayer anyway, as President Obama would have vetoed it, as he has made it clear that he won’t allow ANY changes to Dodd-Frank.  That shows just how disconnected he and his administration are from the real world. Getting Congress to add it to the appropriations bill would have been nice window-dressing, but it was otherwise never going to see the light of day.

Personally, I am not surprised by FHFA excluding chattel. The GSEs clearly never wanted to do chattel loans, and even if they added chattel, I believe they would make it so restrictive that it wouldn’t amount to much volume. The industry wanted FHA Title I chattel opened back up several years ago, and when it finally did get reopened, it wasn’t much of a program and is barely used. IF the FHFA allows chattel, my prediction is it will end up like the FHA Title I program with limited use and limited benefit to the industry. 

On a side note, I have seen articles written about ‘back room’ meetings with finance company and industry leaders occurring with the FHFA. As the leader of the second largest lender in the industry, I have not been given any briefing about this if it happened, and I certainly wasn’t invited if the meetings did take place. But then again, I have not been consulted by anyone at MHI for several years on anything, so maybe I’m just out of the loop. 

And once again, I will state that not having MHI and MHARR working together on issues like these is a travesty, and the lack of a unified voice makes it easy for the bureaucrats in DC to turn their back on us. 

Why we can’t pool our efforts and resources and present a cohesive and defensible plan on no-brainer issues like these that benefit the ENTIRE industry is beyond me. 

Don Glisson Jr.
Chief Executive Officer
Triad Financial Services, Inc.
4336 Pablo Oaks Court
Jacksonville, FL. 32224

 

(Editor’s Note: Extensive commentary on these issues is found in the interview, Another Cup of Coffee with...Don Glisson, Jr., linked here.)