Mark Neumann: “as you know, I am a former home builder and very familiar with the role of home mortgages in the country. We have about…”

“as you know, I am a former home builder and very familiar with the role of home mortgages in the country. We have about 23,000 mortgage brokers that originate half of all home mortgages throughout the country. These are small businessmen and women who provide a convenient and valuable service to both wholesale lenders and home buyers. Sometime the lender pays the mortgage broker for their services which allows lower upfront costs to the home buyer. These payments are known as lender paid mortgage broker fees or yield spread premiums. Confusion has arisen over the legality of lender paid broker fees. Nearly everybody agrees that Federal law does not make lender paid mortgage broker fees automatically illegal. Yet, HUD has difficulty in fully clarifying this point. Although the bill does not help HUD clarify this issue, I know the gentleman shares my concern and I appreciate his efforts during the committee markup. Is it the Chairman's intention to address the lender paid mortgage broker fees in the conference committee?”