New Chief Economist to Step in At MBA

The ""Mortgage Bankers Association's"":http://mba.org/default.htm (MBA) Mike Fratantoni has been appointed chief economist following the ""departure of Jay Brinkmann"":https://themreport.com/articles/mba-chief-economist-to-retire-2013-10-03.

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Fratantoni, currently VP of single family research and policy development, will take over the position in February 2014. In addition to chief economist, he will also take the role of SVP of research and industry technology.

Fratantoni had been senior director of single family research and economics at MBA, leaving to take a job as economic strategist within Washington Mutual's [COLUMN_BREAK]

Enterprise Risk Management Group. He rejoined the association in 2010.

In his current position, Fratantoni serves as Brinkmann's top deputy on residential real estate and economic issues, managing MBA's industry surveys, economic and mortgage originations forecasts, industry technology efforts, and policy development research for issues impacting single-family lending. He is also executive director of MBA's Research Institute for Housing America (RIHA) and is president of the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO).

In a statement, MBA president and CEO David Stevens praised Fratantoni's ability to analyze data and apply it to complex public policy discussions, saying he ""has been a major factor in MBA effectively representing its members as policymakers implement many post-crisis reforms.""

""Mike has been an invaluable resource to MBA and its members as we try and navigate an ever-changing industry and economic environment,"" Stevens said. ""His work has enabled us to make fact-based arguments about the impact of proposed rules, arguments that were critical in improving many of the Dodd-Frank reforms during the notice and comment period.""