With the spring homebuying season fast approaching, you don’t want to have to worry about changes in procedure for getting home financing arranged and closed as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, if you read the news about potential regulatory reform in Washington, the stories are dripping with uncertainty.
Even now, the House Financial Services Committee is holding hearings on the Financial CHOICE Act, the proposed law drafted by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) to replace the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
As you know, Dodd-Frank and the Bureau it created, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has been responsible for all of the changes we been working through together over the past decade or so. Could all of that change…again?
It doesn’t look like it will happen anytime soon. The House is sharply divided on the bill, breaking down along party lines. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-New York) said the bill would “take us back to the regulatory Stone Age” and result in disaster. The Republican rebuttal, coming from Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Missouri), addressing consumers watching the House hearing on television, was “welcome to the circus.”
The government has a lot of work to do if it hopes to unwind Dodd-Frank and there are plenty of other priorities the current administration must deal with, including health care, immigration, and tax reform as well as infrastructure.
All of this suggests that not much will be changing for home financing anytime soon. You can count on us to let you know well in advance of any changes and to help ensure that your new homeowners continue to have access to mortgage financing that closes on time.
