MIRA or H.R. 1728...for most of you out there this is unknown. I could write about this for a week but I won't. What few that do follow this blog would stop. Let me give you a brief rundown.

MBA's Summary is 23 pages long so I will do my best to be brief. In a nut shell here are some key components. MIRA is "Mortgage Improvement and Regulation Act of 2009" and is MBA's attempt to be in front of rather than reacting to Mortgage Reform. Personally, I think the MBA is doing exactly what they should be doing, taking the lead on this issue. I am going to breakdown the purpose into 6 components, 1) Establish a new federal regulator responsible for mortgage lending standards, 2) Require the new regulator to implement tough national mortgage lending standards including substantive requirement for Originators, Servicing, making the market more transparent, 3) Assign Federal and State regulators with concurrent responsibility for reviewing, examine, enforcing national standards while developing new more effective enforcement, 4) Giving the new regulator responsibility for regulating, establishing uniform licensing standards, and increasing net worth requirements for independent Mortgage Lenders and Brokers, 5) Disclosure, counseling, and financial literacy would be the responsibility of the new regulator, 6) Preempting State and Local laws where necessary.

H.R. 1728 has a different take on Mortgage regulation. The bill, H.R. 1728 or the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act of 2009, is an attempt to curb predatory lending. The proposed legislation would require all mortgage originators to be subject to a federal duty of care, licensing and registration, as required under state or federal law, requires originators to present consumers with loans that a consumer has a reasonable ability to repay, the consumer must receive a "net" (to be defined later) tangible benefit (for refinancing), do not have predatory characteristics, full disclosure to consumers, certifying lenders' compliance with mortgage origination requirements including an originators unique identifier in the mortgage documents. Sound familiar North Carolina, much of this bill is modeled after North Carolina's predatory lending law and since Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC) and Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) are co authors no wonder. Yield Spread Ban and other compensation that would encourage mortgage originators to steer applicants from higher cost loans, total direct and indirect compensation given to originators from all permitted sources would not be allowed to vary with the terms of the loan. This bill would provide limited safe harbor that would provide that a prime fully documented 30 yr fixed loan with no negative amortization or interest only features would be presumed to meet the ability to repay and have tangible benefits. No Preemption of local and state laws. There are more provisions to this bill but this is just a summary.

In the end it is more regulation and I am not saying that is bad. I would like to remind everyone of this point, with more regulation comes more work. With more work comes longer closing times. While we may all agree our Mortgage and Financial Services need to be rebuilt carefully look at both proposals. You can read MBA's at www.mortgagebankers.org and H.R. 1728 at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c111:1:./temp/~c111jeWmvN:: ....I will warn you now H.R. 1728 is 151 pages...read carefully.

HAVE A GREAT DAY!!!!

Kevin M. Breeland

General Manager

Residential Mortgage of South Carolina, LLC

427 Johnnie Dodds Rd.

Mount Pleasant, SC 29464

breelandk@residentialmtg.com

www.residentialscdailyrates.com

Competitive by nature...the Best by choice!