WASHINGTON — Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray told members of Congress Tuesday that the agency's qualified mortgage/ability-to-pay rules will not crimp credit union home lending to low- and moderate-income members.
Credit unions with less than $2 billion in assets and make 500 or fewer home loans a year have "carte blanche" to do anything they have done in residential borrowing if they keep the loans on their books, the CFPB chief said in a House Financial Services Committee hearing.
Cordray strongly disagreed with the characterization by Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R.-W.Va.) that one-size-fits-all qualified mortgage rules are taking away the flexibility credit unions need to make home loans to farmers, single mothers, medical students and other lower-income members. Capito, who chairs the Financial Institutions Subcommittee, said credit unions are very concerned about their ability to make these loans.
On another issue the CFPB director said he is "all ears" to make any changes need to changes in rules to facilitate loans for manufactured homes, which Cordray said is a vital part of the housing stock in some parts of the nation.
He said he wants to see what the real impact QM will be on manufactured home lending as opposed to "doomsday predictions" for the rules that took effect Jan. 10.
