MBA president fires back on claims of poor FHA underwriting

An op-ed published earlier this month by The Wall Street Journal has raised the eyebrows of at least one mortgage industry leader, who penned a rebuttal this week about the outlet tying a capital infusion at United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) to the health of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA)’s mortgage insurance fund. On Aug. 13, the Journal’s editorial board published a piece titled, “UWM Is a Government Mortgage Canary,” in which the authors argued that the “struggling lender has used FHA taxpayer guarantees to make risky mortgage bets.” Bob Broeksmit, the president and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), issued a response to the article that the Journal published Friday. Broeksmit said the op-ed erroneously linked the health of an independent lender to the health of the FHA’s Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund (MMIF). ‘Getting rich’ from risky loans In the op-ed published two weeks ago, the Journal’s editorial board argued that UWM president CEO Mat Ishbia‘s decision to sign a strategic capital partnership agreement with Oaktree Capital Management came at a time when the leader of the nation’s largest mortgage lender was already “getting rich from making risky mortga...