SitusAMC's On The Hill

Hamish Hume, partner with Boies Schiller Flexner, discusses his victorious $612 million, breach-of-contract lawsuit on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shareholders. In August 2023, a Washington D.C. jury found the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the regulator of Fannie and Freddie, acted improperly when it implemented the “net worth sweep” in 2012, and diverted their profits to the federal government instead of paying dividends to shareholders. The sweep was established after Fannie and Freddie failed and were put into conservatorship in September 2008 during the Global Financial Crisis.

Tim Rood speaks with Mark Calabria, Former Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), about policy trends in the year ahead and his new book, "Shelter from the Storm: How a COVID Mortgage Meltdown Was Averted."

Tim Rood talks with Mick Mulvaney, Actum Strategic Advisers Co-Chair and Former Acting White House Chief of Staff; and Eric Blankenstein, an attorney and former Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Ginnie Mae. They discuss how federal dominance of the mortgage market has stifled innovation, legislated the risks private lenders can take and changed American attitudes about mortgage obligations.

Tim Rood speaks with David Stevens, CEO of Mountain Lake Consulting, and former President and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association. Stevens, a four-decade veteran of the housing and mortgage industry and former FHA Commissioner, discusses the numerous challenges plaguing the market, and the need for coordinated solutions.

Tim Rood speaks with Ed Delgado, managing director of Mortgage Policy Advisors, and Blake Hastings, SVP of corporate strategy and chief economist for SWBC, a financial services firm, about their new research report covering opportunities and challenges for the housing and mortgage markets from an economic perspective.

Tim Rood talks with Wes Iseley, Senior Managing Director, Carrington Holding Company, about his 40-year career in the mortgage industry, his current position leading a Top 10 GNMA Seller-Servicer-Issuer, the outlook for the housing industry and more.

Tim Rood talks with Stan Middleman, Founder and CEO of Freedom Mortgage, one of the nation's largest mortgage lenders and servicers. Middleman discusses his childhood in Philadelphia, his journey into the business during sky-high interest rates in the 1980s, lessons of the Great Financial Crisis, and sustainable strategies to promote homeownership without driving price inflation.

Tim Rood talks with David Dworkin, president and CEO of the National Housing Conference, the nation's oldest bi-partisan housing coalition. They discuss policy solutions and regulatory reforms needed to address the affordability crisis, boost housing production, encourage mortgage lending for middle- and lower-income buyers, and foster sustainable homeownership.

Tim Rood talks with CNBC reporter Diana Olick, who covers the real estate and climate beats, about rising interest rates, turmoil in the banking sector, and how stresses on regional lenders could reverberate throughout the real estate industry, as well as her career in journalism.

In the latest episode of On the Hill, Tim Rood, SitusAMC's Head of Government and Industry Relations, talks with John Bell, Executive Director of the Department of Veterans Affairs Home Loan Guaranty program. Bell started his current role in June 2022 after a dozen years with the VA, an extensive career in the mortgage industry and his service in the Navy.     Bell talks about how the VA program's share of the total single-family market rose to about 12% today from 1% after the Great Financial Crisis, by increasing participation among top lenders and servicers, and making the mortgage a product of choice among veteran borrowers. Rood and Bell also discussed the VA's two-year-old modernization initiative, designed to increase the exchange of data and improve transparency and efficiency.

In the latest episode of On the Hill, Tim Rood, SitusAMC Head of Government and Industry Relations, speaks with Bob Broeksmit, President & CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association since 2018. They discuss the intensifying regulatory landscape in Washington, D.C., trends in mortgage lending, and when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac might emerging from conservatorship.   In his nearly four decades in the industry, Broeksmit led all aspects of mortgage lending activities, including marketing, sales, operations, secondary marketing, loan servicing, and default management, at companies such as Treliant, Chevy Chase Bank, Prudential Home Mortgage and Great Western Mortgage.

Ep 16: Sheila Bair, Former FDIC Chair by SitusAMC

In this episode of On the Hill, Tim Rood talks with James Lockhart, former Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), about what it took to bring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship during the height of the Great Recession, and the current state of the housing finance market.

In this episode of On the Hill, Tim Rood, Head of Industry Relations, talks with Michael Bright, CEO of the Structured Finance Association, about the future of the non-agency, non-QM securitization markets.

In this episode of On the Hill, SitusAMC's Tim Rood talks with Kristy Fercho, head of Wells Fargo Home Lending and the first black woman to chair the Mortgage Bankers Association. She discusses her biggest career challenges and lessons, and her commitment to increasing minority homeownership and diversity in the mortgage industry.

In this episode of On the Hill, SitusAMC's Tim Rood talks with Pete Mills of the Mortgage Bankers Association about what industry participants seeking to influence policy must know to successfully navigate the federal landscape.

In this episode of On the Hill, Tim Rood, Head of Industry Relations, talks with Kathy Kraninger, former Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). She led the mission and operations for the 1,500-person independent, regulatory and law enforcement agency from December 2018 until January 2021. Kraninger offers advice for mortgage servicers preparing for a more vigorous post-pandemic enforcement environment, and discusses partisanship in Washington, D.C. Kraninger has served on the board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Financial Stability Oversight Board, and as chair of the Federal Financial Institutions Examinations Council. She worked at the Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security, the Office of Management and Budget, and in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

In this episode of On the Hill, Tim Rood, Head of Industry Relations, talks with Craig Phillips, the top housing advisor to former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. For the first time, Phillips takes us behind the scenes in the Trump administration and talks frankly about why efforts to move Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of conservatorship failed. Phillips joined the administration in 2017 as a special counselor focused on domestic finance, housing finance policy and regulatory reform, and left in June 2019. He was previously a Managing Director and Member of the Operating Committee of BlackRock, where he served as head of financial markets advisory and client solutions, advising central banks, banking supervisors and multi-lateral organizations around the world, including the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

In this episode of On the Hill, Tim Rood, Head of Industry Relations, talks with Mark Fleming, Chief Economist, First American Financial Corporation, a leading provider of title insurance, settlement services and risk solutions for real estate transactions. They discuss the COVID-19 forbearance programs and foreclosure moratoriums, President Biden's emphasis on increasing homeownership for minorities and first-time buyers, and the outlook for the hot U.S. housing market.

In this episode of “On The Hill,” Tim Rood, SitusAMC Head of Industry Relations, talks with Mark Zandi, Chief Economist of Moody's Analytics, about the crisis in affordable housing and the government's role in tackling the issue. “We've gone nowhere on homeownership for decades,” Zandi said. “That's a problem, particularly for lower-income Americans of color, because homeownership is the most critical way to building wealth.” Zandi is a cofounder of Economy.com, which Moody's purchased in 2005. He serves on the board of directors of MGIC, the nation's largest private mortgage insurance company, and is lead director of “Reinvestment Fund,” one of the nation's largest community development financial institutions. Zandi frequently testifies before Congress and is often quoted in national and global publications, and interviewed by news media including CNBC, NPR, Meet the Press, CNN, and more. He also hosts the “Inside Economics” podcast.

In this episode of On the Hill, Tim Rood, SitusAMC Head of Industry Relations, speaks with Jim Parrott, nonresident fellow at the Urban Institute and owner of Parrott Ryan Advisors, which provides strategic advice on housing finance issues. Parrott served as a senior advisor at the National Economic Council (NEC) in the Obama White House. He led the team of advisers charged with counseling the cabinet and president on housing issues during one of the most tumultuous times in the history of housing policy, helping them navigate through the collapse of the housing market and the early days of GSE reform. Prior to that Parrott was counsel to Secretary Shaun Donovan at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and a litigator with Sullivan and Cromwell in New York. Rood and Parrott discuss the direction the Biden administration is likely to take on housing policy (the podcast was recorded prior to release of the Biden plan but turned out to be spot on), strategies to overcome the nation's thorny housing supply shortage, and the federal foreclosure and eviction moratoriums. Parrott also ties the issues policymakers are struggling with today to the lessons learned from the Great Financial Crisis. “Policymakers on both sides of the aisle this time around are prioritizing speed and scale,” he said, making programs simpler and more flexible to get relief out sooner and at scale. “We just weren't in a position to do that in 2009 and 2010. The politics were so tricky and so prohibitive.”

In this episode of On the Hill, Tim Rood, SitusAMC Head of Industry Relations, speaks with Mark Calabria, Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). Prior to joining FHFA in 2019, Calabria was Chief Economist for Vice President Mike Pence, spent eight years as Director of Financial Regulation Studies at the Cato Institute, and served as a senior aide on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Calabria drafted significant portions of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA), which created a new regulatory framework for the government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks. Calabria discusses how coming of age in the aftermath of the savings and loan crisis and spending seven years on the Senate Banking Committee shaped his approach to regulating Fannie and Freddie. “My philosophy as a regulator is to hope for the best but plan for the worst,” he said. “What's the worst 5 percent scenario? Even if only 5 percent likely to happen, there's too much at stake to cut corners. It's the decisions of these companies that landed them in the conservatorship. How do you get them to take ownership of their own decisions? How do you create a culture in these companies where they stand up and say we're not going to enable bad behavior?”

In the latest episode of On the Hill, Tim Rood, SitusAMC Head of Industry Relations, speaks with Brian Montgomery, former Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). They discuss the transition to the Biden administration, and myths, misconceptions, and facts about policy-making in Washington, D.C. What does the industry need to understand to influence the housing finance landscape? “If you're looking to move the needle on a policy you've got a lot of moving parts,” Montgomery said, including whether the issue was a campaign promise, is a priority for a particular agency, or can achieve funding approval. “Be eyes wide open to the fact that it could be a very long process.”

In the latest episode of On the Hill, Tim Rood, SitusAMC head of industry relations, speaks with Dana Wade, Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Commissioner and Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). They discuss the work over the last four years to transform FHA through technology modernization, updated rules and regulations, more transparency in financial reporting and better clarity for lenders and markets. Wade talks about what she expects in 2021 amid a potential foreclosure and eviction crisis, and how FHA can best approach lender supervision and enforcement. “The mortgage industry has been such a positive contributor to economic growth and some of the bright spots we see in the economy,” Wade said. “It's a lot of folks who have been working very hard to provide mortgages, to refinance mortgages, to service them. I hope we can step back and appreciate the positive role the mortgage industry has played this past year.”

In episode three of On The Hill, Tim Rood is joined by real estate pundit, Christopher Whalen, to discuss how COVID-19 and the Government's response has impacted two critical government lending programs - FHA & GNMA - and how banks and IMBs are navigating this environment.

In episode two of On The Hill, Tim Rood, Head of Industry Relations at SitusAMC, examines how the government's actions to support consumers affected by COVID-19 may impact independent Mortgage Banks (IMBs) similarly to how regulatory actions impacted banks after the great recession. Tim is joined by SitusAMC Managing Director, Mark Garland.

In our inaugural episode of On The Hill, SitusAMC's Head of Industry Relations, Tim Rood, unpacks the politics behind Congress's response to COVID-19 and the implication on the real estate market. Tim is joined by Ken Riggs, Vice Chairman of RERC, a SitusAMC company.