Two of the largest mortgage broker trade groups are teaming up in Washington, D.C., to bring shared policy priorities to legislators, aiming to secure policy wins on behalf of independent mortgage professionals.
Billed as “Advocacy in Action: Better Together,” the summit is being co-led by the National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB) and the Broker Action Coalition (BAC). The three-day gathering starts on April 20.
Among the policy priorities being discussed, the top concern is comprehensive credit score reform to reduce the rising costs of credit reports. In interviews with Scotsman Guide, the leaders of both groups emphasized this as the primary goal.
“No. 1, what we’re addressing at this conference is credit. Period,” NAMB President Kimber White told Scotsman Guide.
Brendan McKay, chief advocacy officer and co-founder of BAC, agreed on the primacy of credit report reform, saying that the central part of the conference would be educating brokers on how to advocate to legislators about addressing soaring credit score costs.
“Every single broker will be talking to congressional offices about how out of control credit report costs have gotten” and their impacts on consumers, McKay told Scotsman Guide.
Participants will engage in policy briefings, legislative strategy sessions and coordinated face-to-face meetings with members of Congress and their staff. Attendees will discuss several critical industry changes, with credit score reform the top agenda item.
The joint effort officially took root when McKay and White chatted at a conference in Las Vegas last October. During that sit-down — at a food court, in McKay’s recollection — and in subsequent conversations, the leaders of both trade groups converged on an understanding: Working together is essential to ensuring legislators address the needs of mortgage brokers across the nation.
White acknowledged that the industry groups have had to evolve past previous divisions to effectively lobby Congress.
“In the past four years, lots of things changed,” he said, stressing that mortgage professionals must “grow past people’s differences of opinions” if they want to present a strong, unified front in Washington.
The event signals a new phase in the relationship between the groups, establishing a partnership based on shared policy objectives.
“I have always gotten along with Kimber,” McKay told Scotsman Guide. “We sat down to talk about working together rather than working in parallel, and this is what came out of it.”
By choosing to team up on this push, the organizations are seeking to demonstrate their shared commitment to prioritizing broader industry health over past policy disagreements and any existing differences in approach.
The partnership sends “a clear message to the rest of the industry,” said McKay, adding that it is important for mortgage brokers to project a unified front to lawmakers.
White told Scotsman Guide that the most important thing is for the industry to come together on the topics they agree on and transcend their differing views.
“It doesn’t mean we don’t have differences of opinions,” said White, just that the groups are collaborating on their common goals.
While NAMB and BAC will continue to maintain their distinct, separate operational identities outside of this event, both groups hope the initiative will maximize their combined power.
Both McKay and White cited the passage of the “trigger leads bill” — which aims to prevent abusive spam calls to prospective homebuyers — as a case study of where industry groups can come together to effect change.