Kimber White had a late night on July 10. It was on that Friday evening, when the clock struck midnight and the calendar flipped to the 11th, that the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law.

For White, a Florida-based mortgage broker who serves as president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB), it was a moment months in the making that he didn’t want to sleep through.

“I texted my lobbyist at 12:01, and he said, ‘It’s done!’” White recalls with a chuckle. The following business day, he and NAMB President-Elect Mike Farrell headed to the nation’s capital to celebrate.

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“We actually went to D.C. on Monday after it happened, and we were so happy that it was done,” he tells Scotsman Guide in a phone interview.

The ROAD Act — which took about a year of legislative fits and starts in the House and Senate before reaching its final iteration — is widely viewed as the most comprehensive housing reform package in decades. But after the initial elation over its enactment into law, the role of NAMB and other trade groups is to help ensure its various provisions become workable industry policies.

“The mortgage broker’s voice needs to be heard.”

White believes one of the most significant components of the bill is the section addressing manufactured housing. Among other things, it eliminates the costly steel chassis requirement for manufactured homes and increases the limits for manufactured housing loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).

“It allows better [building] codes and better guidelines on financing from Fannie and Freddie and FHA on manufactured housing,” he explains. “We can build these things in factories and move them and put them on lots and get [homeowners] in for a lot cheaper than you can build a stick-built home.”

Other NAMB priorities left intact in the final bill include an FHA pilot program that aims to expand access to mortgages under $100,000. Another provision directs the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to examine loan originator compensation practices and their impact on small-dollar mortgage availability.

White emphasizes that NAMB will continue to push those priorities through conversations with regulators and industry stakeholders.

“We’ve asked to have a seat at the table of implementation,” he says. “It’s not enough to have a seat at the table when the rules are made. Now, how do you implement? What voices? The mortgage broker’s voice needs to be heard.”

Condo changes afoot

As a mortgage industry advocate, you win some, you lose some. A recent mark in the loss column for NAMB and other trade groups was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pushing forward with modifications to condominium lending rules.

The changes include a pending increase to the minimum condo reserve allocation requirement for capital expenditures and deferred maintenance from 10% to 15%. As of Aug. 3, Fannie and Freddie also eliminated the streamlined “limited review” process for loans on units in certain established condo projects.

NAMB, along with the Community Home Lenders of America and the Community Associations Institute, had asked the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which regulates Fannie and Freddie, to delay and reconsider those changes. The trade associations argued that the revised underwriting guidelines, while well intentioned, could result in higher homeowners association dues, additional special assessments and increased insurance costs for condo owners.

White followed up with an individually signed letter to FHFA Director Bill Pulte on June 15, urging a 12-month delay to the changes to provide time for industry feedback.

“We are asking that the industry be given a realistic, workable transition period so the new requirements can be absorbed without disrupting the very borrowers and communities the policy is meant to protect,” he wrote.

White tells Scotsman Guide that while he wasn’t granted the reprieve, the FHFA outreach led to an educational webinar with staff from both Fannie and Freddie. More than 1,500 mortgage professionals attended the training session, which armed them with information on the condo requirements to share with borrowers.

“We are now saying, ‘OK, how do we educate?’ How do we make lemonade out of lemons? How do we fix things?” White says. “And that’s the difference. You can never take it as a loss and lick your wounds and move away.”

Broker Independence Day

This year is White’s 40th in the mortgage industry and 14th as a member of NAMB. He previously served as association president in 2020-21.

White will end his second one-year term on Oct. 1, when he hands the reins to Mike Farrell, an Ohio-based manager at TotalChoice Mortgage, a division of Nations Lending.

2026 also marks the 53rd anniversary of what NAMB calls “Broker Independence Day.” It is a celebration of Aug. 23, 1973, the day the association was founded.

Prior to ’73, White explains, mortgage brokers lacked a voice on Capitol Hill. The national group was an offshoot of the Florida Association of Mortgage Brokers, with NAMB staging its first national convention in Atlanta in 1975.

“They thought that if we could all come together, they could track regulatory issues, make sure that the mortgage broker’s voice was heard,” he says. “Because there were a lot of challenges back then. It truly was not broker friendly. It was banks, banks, banks.”

White views Aug. 23 as a way to celebrate both the evolution of the mortgage broker’s position in the industry and the ongoing role brokers play in the homebuying process for millions of consumers.

“We’re not some corporate talking heads,” he says. “Everyone on our board is a mortgage broker, loan originator, own our own business, sit in the trenches every day. We understand the consumer. We understand the language.”

He recalls the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007 to 2010, when he believes brokers were unfairly scapegoated for selling riskier products pushed by larger lenders.

“As I was told in 2010, I can sit there and gripe and it doesn’t do a thing, or I can be a part of the solution. And I’ve totally, truly tried to be a part of the solution,” White says. “NAMB in 53 years has adapted to change. And that says a lot to have a legacy of 53 years of being a constant and being there through thick and thin and coming out the other side.”