Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) President and CEO Bob Broeksmit, CMB, testified today at a legislative hearing before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance.

Hearing details can be found here. Click here for Broeksmit's written statement.

[Note: Please find Broeksmit's prepared oral statement below. He may add to or subtract from these remarks during the course of his testimony. Portions of the text may be omitted during the testimony.]

ORAL STATEMENT

Bob Broeksmit, CMB, President and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association

2/11/2026

Chairman Flood, Ranking Member Cleaver, and members of this Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the Mortgage Bankers Association.

My name is Bob Broeksmit – and I serve as MBA’s President and Chief Executive Officer. I am a Certified Mortgage Banker with more than forty years of experience in real estate finance.

I have held positions in virtually all aspects of the mortgage business, from loan processing and underwriting to secondary marketing and servicing.

This extensive experience has given me an up-close perspective on the secondary mortgage marketplace – which is a complex ecosystem where both single-family and multifamily loans – and assets such as mortgage servicing rights – are bought and sold.

A sizable percentage of newly originated mortgages are sold by lenders – be they depositories, non-banks, or other capital sources – into the secondary market –where they are packaged into mortgage-backed securities – or “MBS” – and sold to investors.

Many participants utilize this secondary market – most notably Ginnie Mae, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – to help make mortgage credit widely available to borrowers across America by freeing up capital that can be utilized to issue new mortgages.

This process increases liquidity and supports homeownership – and rental activity – by making financing more accessible and affordable.

Other players include entities that issue “private label securities” – or “PLS” – that are MBS created from pools of mortgage loans. These non-government-guaranteed loans offer both investment opportunities – and associated risks. As a point of emphasis, PLS are financial instruments that are not backed by a government guarantee.

Instead, they are created by private entities and typically consist of mortgages that may vary from Fannie and Freddie’s specific underwriting standards – which means investors may realize higher yields but bear more credit risk.

These loans are typically pooled together in a trust, which then issues securities to investors. The cash flows from the underlying mortgages are then passed through to the investors.

Let me now emphasize the sizing of our U.S. real estate and mortgage markets as a part of both the domestic and global economies:

• $48 trillion in owner-occupied real estate value, with almost $14 trillion in mortgage debt – leaving almost $34 trillion in home equity.
• There is another $2.2 trillion in multifamily mortgage debt outstanding plus associated equity.
• An annual mortgage origination volume of $2.2 trillion in residential home lending – with almost $400 billion in multifamily lending.
• In recent years, market shares of residential origination dollar volumes have averaged roughly 50% GSE, 25% bank, 20% Ginnie Mae (FHA, VA, and USDA), and 5%+ for PLS.
• Market shares of multifamily origination dollar volumes have averaged 40% to the GSEs, 5% to FHA, with the remainder covered by banks, life insurance companies, and commercial mortgaged-backed securities (or “CMBS”).
• There was an average MBS trading volume of $351 billion per day in 2025.

All of these executions have led us to an average U.S. homeownership rate of 65.3% - which has held steady, including amongst younger cohorts.

The American mortgage market is unique, given the degree to which 30-year, fixed-rate, fully amortizing, prepayable mortgage loans play such a large role.

Our system protects borrowers against increases in interest rates while providing a long period over which to amortize the loan principal. This allows for more affordable monthly payments than are available under a shorter schedule.

The fixed secondary market has been supported by securitization – which was developed as a means of removing interest rate risk from balance sheets AND providing a long-term fixed-rate asset for investors to help manage the market’s rate volatility risk. This process relies on the steady presence of private investors willing to take on the risks of M-B-S.

The remainder of my written statement describes –

• the key pillars that undergird the secondary market system;a holistic view of that market;
• balancing mortgage market innovation AND the sanctity of existing contracts that support investor activity;
• the core principles needed should Fannie and Freddie exit their conservatorship status; and
• both legislative and regulatory recommendations on housing affordability.

In conclusion, I appreciate this chance to comment on the secondary mortgage market this afternoon.

MBA looks forward to continuing to work with this subcommittee, the full Congress, and the Administration to serve as a resource while important discussions regarding housing continue to take shape.

I look forward to answering any questions you may have.