Senate Aims to Slow Housing Finance Reform 

Underscoring the difficulty the House GOP may face in securing Senate support for their GSE reform measures, key Senators argued for slower and more deliberate action during a March 29 hearing.

Ranking member Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) repeatedly urged his colleagues to undertake the “time-consuming” study necessary to truly understand the cause of the housing crash before implementing solutions. Committee Chair Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) concurred, noting that House Republicans are “rushing to judgment.”

The hearing focused largely on single-family issues, although Shelby engaged in an important exchange with Michael Berman, Chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association, on how the GSEs’ multifamily programs had retained such low default rates given that they faced the same pressures to expand into risky behaviors as the single-family side.

Berman used the opportunity to echo NAA/NMHC’s message to lawmakers, noting that “in the multifamily sector, they stayed disciplined” both in terms of the products they offered and how those products were underwritten.

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