Media Frenzy Likely Over HMDA Data?

Warning that an ill-informed outcry by the news media over the latest Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data could be deafening, the next president of the Mortgage Bankers Association cautioned lenders to "be ready to combat knee-jerk reaction."Regina Lowrie, president of Gateway Funding Diversified Mortgage, said reporters won't be interested in the complex reasons behind the numbers. "Calls for more regulation" are far more likely than the full story, she told the MBA's National Secondary Market Conference in San Francisco. "It could get ugly." Media scrutiny over HMDA is just one of the issues the MBA chairwoman-elect expects to reach a crossroads in the coming months. She said lawmakers also are likely to finally come to grips with creating a stronger, empowered -- and preferably "cautious" -- regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. "MBA supports a GSE regulator with real enforcement authority," Ms. Lowrie said. She also reiterated that the MBA does not want legislation that would cap the government-sponsored enterprises' own portfolios, but that for the sake of clarity it needs a once-and-for-all definition of where origination ends and the secondary market begins.