Preserving Access to Manufactured Housing Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to hear that the chair of the committee has seen the light and will follow the lead of the gentleman from Tennessee, and I am looking forward to him signing on to Congressman Fincher's Export-Import Bank reauthorization bill.

In fact, I wish I could stand here and support this in the name of consumer protection, but it isn't. When we had this hearing, the most common thread was that we needed more information about what is happening out here.

Well, unfortunately, since that hearing, we have received more information. Indeed, The Seattle Times ran an unbelievably in-depth article detailing some of the worst practices among manufactured home lenders, some of those practices which contributed to the subprime bubble and meltdown: not verifying borrowers' income, pushing borrowers into unaffordable loans, aggressive debt collection, driving up costs through hidden add-ons, overappraising homes, all of these things.

If you do nothing else, read this essay, which I flat predict today--write it down--is going to win a Pulitzer Prize. Write it down.

It has been suggested that lenders could not make a living were they held to 8 points over prime, but that doesn't square with reality. What is reality? Take out the largest lender, who averages 7 points over prime, average all the rest, and it is 3.8 percent over prime.

Don't tell me lenders can't make a living in the manufactured home market unless they are given 10 points over prime. They are making a living. In fact, they could double it and still be approximately what the single largest does.

This bill is about relaxing an awful lot of consumer protections among our most vulnerable population, requirements to do housing counseling, a ban on teaser rates, early provision of disclosures, large font statement of the consumers' rights.

This bill would go backwards on those measures and would expose the most vulnerable among us to exploitation. As a consequence, I would urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on H.R. 650 in the name of consumer protection.

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