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Meetingsmba's fiscal year 2024, ending september 30, 2024, saw more than 10,134 individual attendees at 14 conferences and meetings that provided attendees with timely information about the economy, business trends, technological innovation and legislative and regulatory changes and prospects. This was a 2000 attendee improvement over fy2023. MBA conducted a successful annual convention in october 2023 with 3369 attendees. The cref/multifamily housing convention & expo was held in february 2024 in san diego with 2,221 attendees. Sponsorships for fy2024 saw strong participation with 289 and the expo had 235 exhibitors. In addition to the two large conventions expected from a major association mentioned above, MBA usually hosts 2 additional large conferences and expos each year (servicing solutions conference and expo and the secondary and capital markets conference and expo) as well as 10 more finely focused specialized interest conferences to help participants gain knowledge and information in such areas as independent mortgage banking, legal issues, regulatory compliance, commercial servicing and tech, and accounting and financial management. We have suspended the technology conference, but we continue to offer robust technology session and demos at as many conferences as possible.in terms of programming, we issued 672 certificates for continuing legal education credit (cle), 186 for cpe credits through nasba (national association of state boards of accountancy) and other continuing education credits related to our programs. It is worth highlighting that we had over 288 sessions with 997 speakers.even with the fiscally successful annual convention and strong sponsorship sales, especially at the start of the fiscal year, our members faced challenges and strong headwinds as the year continued, as rates continued to stay high with no relief from the federal reserve.
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Membership MBA's membership includes businesses from all segments of the real estate finance industry. We ended 2024 with almost 2,100 total members. Educationmba education provided training and development to over 65,000 real estate professionals representing single-family and commercial/multifamily lending during the fiscal year ending september 30, 2024. Training is provided through a mix of delivery formats including classroom-based courses, instructor-guided online courses, certification and designation programs, webinars, and web-based self-study courses. Across MBA education's live programming and self-paced offerings, the department offers nearly 450 training programs covering all facets of the industry. Our 3-course flagship program, the school of mortgage banking, combined to train nearly 1,100 students. Successful completion of the three courses results in students being awarded the accredited mortgage professional (amp) certification. MBA education's certification and designation programs continued to be a significant benefit to industry professionals. During the fiscal year, nearly one thousand individuals enrolled in one of MBA education's seven certification and designation programs, including sixty in the prestigious certified mortgage banker (CMB) designation.
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Advocacy for members and the industrymba continues to be the leading advocate for the entire real estate finance industry both in washington, d.c. And in state capitals. In fiscal year 2024, the association provided thought leadership on a variety of public policy issues, including pathways to creating affordable rental and homeownership opportunities, reforming the secondary mortgage market, rationalizing risk-based capital standards, improving the homebuying experience for borrowers, tax policies impacting real estate finance, and other legislative, regulatory, and supervisory issues.our federal legislative accomplishments included providing testimony and statements for the record before key congressional committees and support for the enactment of several industry priorities (both residential and commercial/multifamily), including those related to affordable housing and affordable rental housing, VA home loan program reforms, funding for critical HUD information technology infrastructure, extending the national flood insurance program, and mortgage credit "trigger leads" legislation. Through regular meetings with federal legislators and congressional staff our legislative affairs team provided education and advocacy on a wide variety of other real estate finance issues affecting single family, multifamily and commercial (e.g., tax policy, regulatory clarity, government housing programs, minimum federal remote online notarization standards, data privacy, false claims ACT, etc.). MBA's mortgage action alliance registered over 70,000 participants to conduct constituent engagement.regarding regulatory achievements in the residential real estate finance sector, MBA submitted comment letters and provided guidance and substantive recommendations throughout the year to regulatory agencies, including HUD, VA, USDA, treasury, CFPB, fhfa, SEC, occ, fdic, and the federal reserve. These recommendations covered a wide-ranging set of mortgage finance issues, including origination and servicing guidelines, secondary market structure, tax and accounting requirements, capital and liquidity requirements, consumer protection regulations, and data security/privacy, and the use of artificial intelligence in lending and servicing. The association also filed amicus briefs in numerous cases supporting the industry in disputes over important legal issues.MBA's regulatory work in fiscal year 2024 supported our members' commercial and multifamily real estate finance interests by supporting the objective of facilitating liquidity and capital availability for the industry. MBA provided data, information, and recommendations on issues affecting the commercial real estate finance industry to the administration and regulatory agencies, including the CFPB, fdic, the federal reserve, fhfa, HUD, the white house and treasury. Issues included: affordable rental housing, low-income housing tax credits, continued capital, flood insurance regulations, life company risk-based capital standards, gse capital and regulatory policy, and fha issues impacting multifamily and residential healthcare finance. At the state level, we worked with numerous state mortgage banking associations and other partners on a wide variety of housing, licensing, and real estate finance issues by providing data and policy analysis to support their efforts. In the commercial and multifamily finance space, we worked with our state and local chapters to combat rent control efforts and instead advocate for common sense solutions to help renters, owners, and lenders. Additional efforts focused on state laws and regulations related to the taxation of mezzanine debt, rental housing subsidies and office conversion tax credits, data privacy/security, and mortgage servicer capital and liquidity requirements.as the voice of the real estate industry in washington, d.c. And throughout the nation, MBA provides numerous business segment forums for industry professionals to meet and discuss issues unique to their sector of the real estate finance market. MBA is also proud to host and support diversity and inclusion initiatives, young professionals' groups, and affordable homeownership coalitions.