Brian Summerfield, REALTOR Magazine

Although the 2,314-page Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act signed into law last year doesn’t affect real estate brokers and agents as much as, say, mortgage originators, it does have some significant implications for the industry, said Phillip Schulman, a partner at the Washington, D.C. law firm K&L Gates LLP.

In his remarks at the Real Estate Services Forum Thursday during the REALTORS® Midyear Legislative Meetings, Schulman told attendees that the mortgage lending sector was targeted by many of the bill’s provisions.

“[Dodd-Frank] came down hard on loan officers and mortgage brokers. Why? Because they were the ones working with the borrowers,” said Schulman, adding that in the future all originators will be qualified, licensed, and registered, as well as issued a unique identifier.

“Anytime there’s a violation committed by a loan officer, it’s going to be reported in a nationwide system,” he said.

The bill also affects the financial sector, particularly in terms of the structure of securities, which are debts or equities that are packaged for investment. To avoid the financial fraud of the previous decade, Dodd-Frank requires financial companies that create securities to hold a minimum 5 percent stake in them — the exception being securities that are composed of qualified residential mortgages (QRM).

Current QRM requirements for borrowers include no option adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs), no bankruptcy in the past three years, no prior short sale or foreclosure, and points and fees charged by the lender totaling less than 3 percent of the loan’s value. Furthermore, lenders and regulators have recently recommended implementing a higher minimum down payment.

The increasingly stringent requirements pose a serious challenge to a viable housing market, Schulman noted.

“The eligible loan is shrinking and shrinking, and it’s going to be harder for someone who has any dents or scratches in their credit to get a loan,” he said. “It’s all well and good to get the riff-raff out of the business and get rid of these exotic, fly-by-night financial products, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.

“We just came through a decade of this laissez-faire attitude. The atmosphere was one of easy money. We put millions of Americans in homes who probably should not have been there. Today, Washington is all about risk management. Congress and regulators stepped in and were asked to regulate. So they did what they always do. They overregulated. I think until we earn back the trust of the Congress and the regulators and even the American people, we’re going to continue to be scrutinized like never before.”

Here are a few other important, real estate-related changes brought about by the bill:

Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection: this new behemoth regulatory agency — which Jay N. Varon, Schulman’s fellow speaker and a litigation partner with law firm Foley & Lardner LLP, characterized as the “centerpiece” of Dodd-Frank — will officially launch on July 21. This organization will encompass a half-dozen current regulatory agencies and 18 consumer statutes, including RESPA. It will also have what Varon called “nuclear” penalties, meaning punishments for violations will be much more stringent than they are now.

Prohibitions on steering and loan-officer compensation: Dodd-Frank changed the compensation model for loan officers to prevent them from steering consumers into loans that may not be right for them, yet profitable for the lending company. According to Schulman, loan officers will collect the same sum per loan, whether it’s a 30-year fixed mortgage or an option ARM. Still, he said this new arrangement isn’t entirely fool-proof. “Businessmen figure out a way to make every system work. Sure, they’ll pay them 50 basis points for loans of all kinds. But they can also pay them bonuses based on total volume,” he explained.

Appraisals and AMCs: New regulations in Dodd-Frank are designed to protect appraiser independence, Schulman said. These rules also sunset the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC), which caused a great deal of consternation among real estate professionals who say it contributed to the collapse of deals after it was enacted in 2009.