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NAR submitted a statement last week to the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Rural Development, and Credit to their hearing entitled, "A Review of Credit Availability in Rural America." In the statement, NAR stressed the importance of access to credit for all homebuyers, and described the specific challenges for rural communities. The statement also urged three changes to expand access to credit: 1) update the definition of "rural", which hasn't been changed since 1974; 2) allow the Rural Housing Service (RHS) to utilize direct endorsement lenders, to speedup transaction time and lessen the burden on RHS staff; and 3) resist calls to limit access to federal programs.
NAR made similar pleas recently with House and Senate Appropriations Committees, urging them to allow RHS to use direct endorsed lenders as part of the FY 2015 Appropriations process.