The following information is an important message from the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

First, please know that H.R. 1728 will not be taken up by the Senate any time soon.  Senate Banking Chairman, Chris Dodd, has indicated this a couple of times over the last few weeks, with his latest comments appearing in the May 26th release of Inside Regulatory Strategies.  In the article, an industry executive is quoted as saying that this is "deja vu all over again", referring to the 2007 anti-predatory lending bill that was sent to the Senate and died due to inaction.  Moreover, Chairman Dodd indicated that "this issue is not on his 'must do list', which includes credit card reform, financial modernization, and the oversight of TARP."  Senator Dodd goes further and states, "he's not minimizing predatory lending, but the financial crisis has pretty much collapsed the subprime market, where the majority of abusive and predatory practices took place."

Second, when the original language for H.R. 1728 was introduced, REALTORS® faced two significant issues: 1) being included in the definition of mortgage originator, which would have required additional licensing and educational requirements, and 2) having All consumers that finance the sale of their real property required to be licensed to do so.  We worked hard, and successfully removed the requirement of REALTORS® licensed / registered as mortgage originators, and to allow seller financiers not to have to register or get licensed to sell their own real property once every three years.  Please note that the language does not prohibit consumers from financing the sale of more than 1 property every three years.  If they want to finance more than 1 property every 3 years, they will have to be licensed as a mortgage originator, and become subject to the rules within H.R. 1728.  It was Congress' contention that this requirement would severely constrain the possibility of seller-financing as a loop hole for the unscrupulous businesses that preyed on consumers during the housing bubble.

So, with all that said, there are two things to take from this message.  First, the bill looks like it is going absolutely no where.  Second, consumers can still finance the sale of their real property, with the only restriction being that if you want to sell more than 1 in a 3-year period, you must register as a mortgage originator if this bill becomes law.