Streamlined Mortgage Disclosure Forms Could Help Homebuyers

According to last week’s Wall Street Journal, a new agency formed by President Obama aims at simplifying the mortgage application process by boiling down mortgage disclosure forms into a single clear-cut document.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, headed by Elizabeth Warren, hopes to combine existing mortgage disclosure documents in order to make questions of affordability, interest, and other fine print more accessible to the average home-buyer. Many people believe that shoddy, unclear, overwhelming paperwork bears much of the responsibility for the collapse of the housing market.
For the most part, the response to the plan seems quite positive – after all, a more straight-forward mortgage disclosure process would protect both consumers and banks in the long run. However, some have pointed to the danger of oversimplifying such an inherently weighty and complicated transaction, and others simply don’t believe it will be possible.
The success or failure of the project will mark a milestone for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is relatively new.