NAMB's 2025-2026 Year in Review - A Year Of Wins

On October 1, 2025, Kimber White took the gavel as President of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, the only national volunteer-led, member-driven organization representing the interests of mortgage professionals across the country. He took office with a straightforward wager: that an association speaking for more than 533,500 licensed and registered loan originators and 47,800 mortgage broker and lender businesses, working through 17 state associations, could still move Washington if it showed up loud, organized, and specific. A year later, as he hands the presidency to Michael Farrell on October 1, 2026, the bet looks like it paid off. Here is how the year unfolded.

White inherited some momentum. Weeks before he took office, the Homebuyers Privacy Protection Act cleared the full Senate, and it was signed into law that September, banning the sale of “trigger leads” pulled from a borrower's credit inquiry. That win was led by NAMB Past President Jim Nabors who carried the fight through the final stretch that the association carried since 2018. “Since 2018, NAMB has carried this torch,” Nabors said when the Senate passed the bill, adding that the association kept up the fight long after others had grown weary of it. NAMB, and every broker who benefits from the ban, owes him thanks for seeing it through. The ban took effect March 5, 2026, and brokers who had spent years fielding complaints from harassed borrowers finally got some quiet.

NAMB opened the new year in Orlando. NAMB Focus 2026, the association's annual sales, marketing, and technology conference, ran January 14-17, 2026 under the theme “Elevate,” with three one-day certification classes packed into the agenda alongside sessions on growing a brokerage. It set the tone for a year built as much on member development as on legislative fights.

In February, NAMB put its full policy platform on paper. The white paper, “Solving America's Housing Affordability Crisis: A Comprehensive Framework for Expanding Homeownership Opportunities,” laid out NAMB's affordability agenda for the year: reducing Loan-Level Price Adjustments on investment and second homes, shortening GSE refinance waiting periods, expanding income thresholds for HomeReady and Home Possible, and tackling the rising cost of credit reports. “America's housing affordability crisis is urgent, but solvable,” NAMB wrote, framing the broker channel as essential to reaching first-time, self-employed, and minority and low-income buyers who need more than one lender's product menu. The paper became the throughline for nearly everything NAMB pushed on for the rest of the year.

That tone carried into April, when NAMB and the Broker Action Coalition brought members to Washington for “Advocacy in Action: Better Together,” a day built around Capitol Hill meetings and a shared message: brokers and the coalition backing them were not going to lobby quietly. Behind the scenes, NAMB's Government Affairs team was also deep into the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act (H.R. 6644), producing comparison analyses, amendment recommendations, and support letters to the House Financial Services Committee through draft after draft of the bill.

NAMB also worked on how it tells its own story. The association relaunched namb.org with more interactive features and rebuilt pages, including an updated NAMB Lobbies for You hub, giving members a faster way to see where NAMB stands on a bill and to jump straight into action. Marketing got a rework too: instead of running the same message every month, NAMB built its content calendar around a single topic that mattered to brokers, from wire fraud and cybersecurity to a refreshed origination toolkit to June's National Homeownership Month, timed to one of the busiest buying seasons of the year.

The wire fraud focus connected to one of the year's highest-profile moments for NAMB. In April 2026, Kimber White appeared on ABC's Good Morning America to warn homebuyers about a growing wave of wire fraud and business email compromise scams targeting real estate closings. The appearance fed directly into NAMB's decision to declare May 2026 Mortgage Fraud Awareness Month, complete with a dedicated resource page walking brokers and consumers through the warning signs. It was the most visible stretch yet of a broader push to put White, and NAMB's message, in front of a wider audience.

The next few months tested how much of that advocacy would actually stick.

Some of it paid off fast. Credit report costs had exploded, the price of a single legacy credit score had climbed nearly 1,800 percent since 2020, and NAMB had been pressing FHFA to open the door to competition. On April 22, FHFA Director William Pulte and HUD Secretary Scott Turner announced that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would begin accepting VantageScore 4.0 for underwriting, with FHA to follow. It was a direct answer to one of the white paper's core asks, and NAMB spent the summer walking members through what it meant in a dedicated VantageScore webinar.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had issued new condo guidelines under Lender Letter LL-2026-03, retiring the Limited Review process and raising HOA reserve requirements from 10 percent to 15 percent. NAMB pushed back hard, sending a position statement and letters to FHFA Director William Pulte and building out market research across eleven states. As the implementation dates got closer and the delay NAMB wanted didn't come, the association pivoted: brokers would use the moment to educate real estate agents and HOA boards instead of just fighting the calendar. “Take the opportunities to use this as a teaching moment,” White told Mortgage Professional America.

On veterans' housing benefits, NAMB's VA lending subcommittee dug in against Section 104 of H.R. 9237, which would nearly triple the VA IRRRL funding fee and double the VA assumption fee. Rather than accept a hike buried inside a larger veterans' bill, NAMB asked members to support the standalone Major Richard Star Act instead, so combat-injured veterans got their benefits without every veteran borrower footing a higher fee. White took the case directly to the Senate VA Committee.

Then came June, and one of the year's clearest wins: HUD eliminated the FHA's 90-day flip rule, which had kept buyers from using FHA financing on a home resold within 90 days of the seller's purchase. “Elimination of the 90-day flip restrictions is huge,” White told industry publications, adding that the change would help first-time homebuyers get financing faster.

The ROAD to Housing Act finally crossed the finish line in July, though not the way anyone expected. The House had passed its version in February, and the House and Senate spent months reconciling their differences. When the final bill reached the President's desk, he let it sit. It became law on July 11, 2026, without his signature, after the ten-day constitutional window ran out.

Winning a bill is one thing. Getting a hand in how it gets carried out is another, and White made that the next fight. “We've asked to have a seat at the table of implementation,” he said of provisions preserved in the final law, including an FHA pilot for mortgages under $100,000 and a CFPB study of loan originator compensation. It is not enough, he argued, to have a voice when the rules are written; brokers need a voice in how they get carried out too. NAMB pushed for that same kind of seat on the appraisal side of the business, building on its standing as the first mortgage association named a partner of The Appraisal Foundation and staying active in The Appraisal Foundation Advisory Council. Michael Farrell delivered NAMB's opening statement at a valuation industry roundtable in June, and NAMB filed formal comments on proposed changes to appraiser qualification standards, arguing for reform that keeps the pipeline of new appraisers open without cutting corners on fair housing training.

Not every win happened on Capitol Hill. NAMB also spent the year rebuilding its education pipeline. The CFMP credential was rebranded as CALS, the Certified Affordable Lending Specialist designation, with a sharper focus on FHA lending. Standards for the GMA certification, NAMB's entry-level credential for new mortgage professionals, got a refresh, and the CVLS veterans-lending credential picked up Basic and Advanced tracks.

August belonged to NAMB's own history. The association marked the 53rd year since its founding with Broker Independence Day, the anniversary of its August 23, 1973 start, using the month to make the case for an independent, member-driven trade voice and to invite lapsed members back with a renewal discount.

The year closes at NAMB National 2026, October 16 to 19 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, under the theme “Journey Further. Achieve More.” It is also where Kimber White hands the presidency to Michael Farrell.

As White steps back, the fights he leaves behind carry into the new term: FHA mortgage insurance premium reform, appraisal qualification standards, and the fate of H.R. 9237's VA fee provisions, among others. NAMB will keep members posted through On the Hill, its biweekly newsletter on Washington policy, and at namb.org.

This article was provided by National Association of Mortgage Brokers