MBA Launches Council on Ensuring Mortgage Liquidity

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorWashington, D.C.–The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) has assembled a task force of MBA members to examine policy options and issue recommendations for the future of the secondary mortgage market. Michael D. Berman, CMB, MBA’s incoming vice chairman and the president of CWCapital of Needham, Mass., will lead the Council on Ensuring Mortgage Liquidity (CEML). “The next 16 months will see a wide-ranging policy debate focusing on the recreation and redefinition of the secondary mortgage market and the roles that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the federal home loan banks will play,” says David G. Kittle, CMB, chairman-elect of MBA. “As the national trade association representing the real estate finance industry, we will bring together some of the sharpest minds in the industry to discuss what that market should look like and make recommendations to policy makers on the structure for the secondary mortgage market and the GSEs.” As its very first measure, CEML will convene a one-day summit on November 19, 2008 in Washington, D.C. Titled, “Ensuring Mortgage Liquidity: A Summit on the Future of the Secondary Mortgage Market and GSEs,” this meeting will be a forum for the council members to learn from outside experts from government, academia and other areas on the root causes of the secondary mortgage market’s disintegration, what the important ingredients must be for a new market and what potential solutions should be considered. “The council wants to bring together a wide variety of experts who can engage in a vigorous discussion about what needs to be done to build a robust secondary mortgage market that will help us offer affordable credit to qualified borrowers,” says Michael Berman, chairman of the council. “We want to hear from all sides and get all the options out on the table.” Following the summit, the Council will meet a number of times to discuss those options with the goal of providing formal recommendations to policy makers in the early spring.