Trump Nominates New Head for Federal Housing Administration

The White House has picked a familiar mortgage expert to lead the Federal Housing Administration.The Trump administration nominated Matt Jones to head FHA and serve as assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Jones would require Senate confirmation to serve permanently. He'd replace Frank Cassidy, who told Realtor.com® his successor must cut red tape.Jones is currently deputy assistant secretary for Single Family Housing at HUD, where he's been involved in a number of its major initiatives. That includes modernizing HUD codes for manufactured housing, overhauling FHA's single-family mortgage insurance program. He also oversees HUD's insurance-in-force portfolio of 8 million loans with a principal balance of more than $1.6 trillion.Before HUD, Jones was associate vice president for Government Housing Finance at the Mortgage Bankers Association. He has experience both in industry and politics, having started his career as a mortgage loan originator at Amerifirst Home Mortgage in Michigan. Jones rose to senior advisor for capital markets there from 2017 to 2021.He also spent time as counsel at Senate Banking Committee and Senate Finance Committee, h...