By an almost five-to-one margin, mortgage brokers favor a direct line to whatever government-sponsored mortgage agency rises from the ashes of the mortgage meltdown.
"By and large, our members are questioning that in this day and age, why do we need another layer between them and the government-sponsored enterprises?" said Roy DeLoach, chief executive officer of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers.
NAMB surveyed its members about their thinking on the GSEs in preparation for tomorrow's Treasury Department forum on the future of the federal housing finance system. "The village has burnt down," said DeLoach. "Now is the time to have fresh thinking on how it should be rebuilt."
Fifty-six percent of the respondents said yes to the question, "If all underwriting, processing, mortgage insurance and appraisal ordering were controlled by a GSE, do you think mortgage brokers should be allowed to directly transact a mortgage with them?" Only 11 percent said no, while the remainder said they needed more information before they could answer.
NAMB's members aren't so one-sided on other questions, however. They are split almost down the middle on whether Congress should keep Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as they were and whether they should let the GSEs create their own appraisal ordering system so that the originator could order - but not choose - the appraiser.
However, 93% don't want a permanent government takeover of Fannie and Freddie, which are now in conservatorship, and 83% don't want all of the government's housing programs and agencies made into a single entity. At the same time, almost two-thirds don't want to shut them down and allow the private market to take over their secondary market function.
On other questions, the majority of brokers find the prospect of giving the GSEs the power to insure mortgage-backed securities issued by others an intriguing possibility and think the government should no longer mandate low and moderate-income targets for the GSEs.
