EP#95 Frank Cassidy | Less Red Tape, More Supply

Summary

The Rent Roll with Jay Parsons — EP#95: Frank Cassidy | Less Red Tape, More Supply
Date: July 30, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Rent Roll dives into the persistent issues and recent evolution in rental housing, with a particular spotlight on the federal policy landscape. Host Jay Parsons shares up-to-date data on apartment lease-ups, new construction rent trends, and headlines affecting the sector—including a critical look at rent control policy. The main event is an interview with Frank Cassidy, former Commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Assistant Secretary for Housing at HUD, discussing cutting red tape, policy innovation, FHA program reform, and strategies for more efficient affordable and market-rate housing supply.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Market Data: Lease-Ups, Rent Growth, and Pipeline Realities

Apartment Lease-Up Trends:

• (02:13–10:53) There are nearly 600,000 units nationally still in lease-up, down from an early-2025 peak of 800,000, but still well above the pre-surge baseline (~500,000 in 2021).
• Elevated lease-up inventory continues to apply downward pressure on rents, even as new supply is slowing.
• Lease-up supply affects market rents across all classes, including affordable and subsidized units.

“Until that number normalizes, I think it’s going to be really hard to see a material bump in market occupancies and in rents.” — Jay Parsons (05:09)

Rent Trends in New Construction:

• (05:40–10:53) Nationally, new construction rents for units built since 2020 are flat—no real growth over four years despite higher construction costs.
• In the most oversupplied (Sunbelt) markets, new construction rents remain down 8.6% from 2022 peaks.
• Some Sunbelt markets have seen drops of 15–20%+ (e.g., Pensacola, Fort Myers, Austin, Phoenix), while stabilized or strengthening rent growth is present in select Midwest and Northeast metros.
• Market-by-market variation is stark; some regions (e.g., San Francisco, New York, Chicago, certain Midwest and Kentucky markets) have new construction rents at all-time highs.

Key Implications:

• Developers face difficult “math”—input costs are up while rent projections flatline or fall.
• Market recovery and new starts are dependent on a return to normalized lease-up numbers and stabilized rent growth.

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2. Policy in Focus: Rent Control, Targeting, and Market Impact

Rent Control Debate (NYC as Example):

• (13:39–19:34) Recent WSJ data show that 10% of NYC’s rent-stabilized apartments are occupied by households earning $200k+, who receive the largest discounts.
• The program is untargeted; biggest savings accrue to those least in need.
• Jay calls for targeted, subsidized programs (like LIHTC) and criticizes universal rent control as inefficient and inequitable.

“If you really care about low income households and working class households, why do you not prioritize them? ... Is it too radical to argue that affordable housing and rent control benefits should really go to those who need it?” — Jay Parsons (16:24)

Supply Impacts:

• Untargeted rent control can exacerbate supply shortages and misallocate limited affordable stock.

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3. Interview: Frank Cassidy on FHA, HUD, and Housing Supply

Frank’s Career and Entry into Policy

• (24:08–27:10) Started in agency lending at Oppenheimer, then to Walker & Dunlop; tapped for FHA Commissioner post-2025.
• Saw government role as “an opportunity to serve the country” and bring private sector expertise to public service—despite initial reluctance.

“If you had told me a couple years ago that I would leave my job in the private sector and go work in the government, I probably would have thought you were crazy.” — Frank Cassidy (27:19)

Cutting Red Tape & FHA Reform

• (30:04–32:45)

  • Major focus on eliminating bureaucratic hurdles, especially for “green” multifamily loan certification.
  • Reduced mortgage insurance premium (MIP) to the statutory minimum (25 bps) for all multifamily loans, dropped costly energy certification requirements, freeing millions in unnecessary compliance costs.
  • “A bureaucratic red tape that was slashed overnight.” — Frank Cassidy (32:23)

• (33:07–35:48)

  • Initiated a “cultural change” at HUD, prioritizing multifamily lending rather than seeing it as secondary to single family.
  • Encouraged staff to “look for ways to get to yes” while maintaining historically low default rates (<0.2%).
  • Result: Record multifamily volume, streamlined processes, improved internal staff morale.

• (36:11–38:40)

  • Pushed for speed: Examples include implementing an “Express Lane” for senior housing/healthcare deals, reducing queue from 70 deals and 4+ months to near-instant commitments.

Navigating Politics & Bureaucracy

• (39:11–43:36)
  • Government moves “like a giant cruise ship—very hard to change course quickly.”
  • To effect change, focused on a handful of high-impact initiatives and collaborated closely with career government staff for buy-in.
  • Admits frustrations with slow pace and political noise (“you only have a couple years to really get things done”).

The Road to Housing Act & Real Supply Solutions

• (44:25–47:33)
  • Praises new legislation, particularly for manufactured housing, removing the steel chassis requirement—enabling factory-built, multi-story, lower-cost housing.
  • “It has the potential to change, you know, how housing is built in this country.”
  • Points to expanded FHA multifamily statutory limits as another win.
  • On policies targeting institutional SFR owners: “It's not a huge percentage of homes. ... Politically, it’s an issue that polls very well.”

On Supply, Red Tape, and LIHTC

• (47:39–53:09)
  • Primary supply problem is “a lack of supply”—not institutional landlords.
  • 20–40% of development costs are bureaucratic; reducing regulatory burden is key to affordability.
  • LIHTC and FHA programs could do more with explicit carrots and incentives for efficient building.
  • Example: Davis-Bacon wage rate thresholds drive up costs and result in sub-optimal designs (“90% of all D4s are four stories or less … Imagine if we just raised that four stories up to six stories, how much more housing we would have...”).
• (52:21–54:06)
  • Upcoming “Kitchen Sink” mortgagee letter aims to include a LIHTC “express lane,” D4 program reforms, and explicit FHA support for BTR (Build-to-Rent).

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4. Cassidy’s Next Chapter

• (54:17–55:33)
  • Returning to Walker & Dunlop, helping clients navigate FHA and HUD based on insider insights and relationships.
  • Emphasizes the value of understanding federal process (“sometimes if a career doesn’t have an answer, a deal will just sit there”).

“What I noticed at FHA and HUD is that sometimes if a career doesn’t have an answer, a deal will just sit there. … Knowing how decisions ultimately are made at the highest level is something I’m excited to capitalize on.” — Frank Cassidy (55:00)

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Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• On Rent Control’s Untargeted Flaws:

  “It just gives big unfunded discounts even to high income renters who don’t need the benefits.”
  — Jay Parsons (14:13)

• On Red Tape and Premium Reduction at HUD:

  “We scratched that [annual green report] completely... That’s millions and millions of dollars of bureaucratic red tape that was slashed overnight.”
  — Frank Cassidy (32:23)

• On HUD’s Internal Culture Shift:

  “I was able to jump in as somebody who understood the multifamily side of the business… and really coach and help them figure out ways to responsibly get to yes on deals.”
  — Frank Cassidy (34:13)

• On Importance of Supply:

  “Ultimately, you can’t subsidize your way out of a housing crisis. You can only build your way out of a housing crisis.”
  — Frank Cassidy (47:54)

• On Bureaucratic “Tax”:

  “When you look at the cost to build housing, you know, 20 to 40% is some form of bureaucratic red tape. And that’s really the bureaucratic tax that ultimately gets passed along to the consumer.”
  — Frank Cassidy (48:45)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Market Data & Trends: 02:13–10:53
• Rent Control Discussion: 13:39–19:34
• News Headlines: 19:34–23:59
• Frank Cassidy Interview: 24:01–55:48

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Tone & Takeaways

The episode is candid and detailed—Jay Parsons pulls no punches in calling out policy inefficiencies and the unintended consequences of well-meaning but flawed systems. Frank Cassidy brings practical, pragmatic insight from his “tour” through federal housing programs and shares how targeted deregulation and focused leadership can translate to real improvements for developers, affordable housing, and market supply.

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For Listeners:

If you seek to understand how policy, public investment, and regulation shape rental housing supply and affordability, this episode provides both data and “from-the-trenches” insight. Cassidy’s examples of slashing red tape and pushing for targeted, market-friendly policy reforms will resonate with industry veterans frustrated by inertia—and those looking for ways forward.

Transcript

[Jay Parsons]

Welcome.

[Host]

Welcome. It's episode number 95 of the rent Roll, your podcast on all things rental housing, apartments, single family rentals and build to rent. So here's what's on the docket for today. First and foremost, I'm going to give you the latest data on apartment lease ups and how that's impacting rents and future development, the development pipeline, I should say, and also how those trends vary by market because it varies a lot even in these high supplied Sunbelt markets. And that's going to have some real implications on the rent recovery and on supply in the next cycle. Then we're going to talk headlines impacting rental housing. We got an interesting story from the Wall Street Journal examining just how much of the New York New York City's rent stabilized apart market is occupied by high income renters and what I'm going to tell you what that might mean for other cities that are considering rent control policies. And then in today's interview, we've got with us the recently departed head of the Federal Housing Administration and assistant secretary for housing at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Mr. Frank Cassidy. We'll talk with Frank about red tape cutting at HUD and FHA to improve liquidity and supply in the housing market, especially for affordable housing. And we'll talk about the challenges of working as a political appointee at the behest of the White House. And also just what's next for Frank as he returns to the private sector, going back to Walker and Dunlop where he worked prior to joining the administration. So lots to do. So let's get into it. First and foremost, a big shout out to my friends at jpi, a leading apartment developer, the state of purpose to transform, building, enhance communities and improve lives. Check them [e-mail] I've said this a lot. I'll say it again, JPI. They are really at the cutting edge edge of some really exciting innovations in apartment development and construction. So if you've not seen what they've been doing lately, definitely give it a look. Also, big shout out to Madera residential@madeira residential.com also to funnel the AI and CRM platform you can find@funnel leasing.com okay,

[Jay Parsons]

so as always, let's kick it off

[Host]

with the section we call. Here's a chart and, and, and we're going to talk about supply in this segment. And before we do that, I want to give a shout out to this segment sponsor the Kirkland company celebrating 20 years of helping investors source and sell multifamily assets tailored to their Investment strategy. This week's feature apartment listing is Nova 1400 in Daytona Beach, Florida, a 275 unit single story asset on 44 Park Lake Acres surrounded by retail in the immediate vicinity of the Daytona Beach International Airport and Daytona International Speedway. Current ownership, according to Kirkland, has invested approximately $5 million into the asset which includes 200 locations large, 877 square foot, one bedroom floor plans. To learn more about Nova 1400 and other investment opportunities, visit we sellapartments.com the Kirkland Company. We sell apartments. And again, all that data comes courtesy of Kirkland. Okay, so for here's a chart. This week we got three charts. All of them relate to the same topic. It's around lease ups and the rent impact. Because we know supply has been the biggest headwind to rents these past few years. Any rebound in rents is going to be heavily tied to the slowdown in supply. So we know supply is coming down. We've talked about that a lot in recent months and episodes. But when we talk about supply we're typically talking about completions. But it's, we have to remind ourselves that just because a property completes that does not mean the battle's over. That is not, that's not the end of the impact on the market. It's really just the start of the impact. And so don't look at it's a completions and thinks, okay, completions are down, everything gets better. Those new builds have to lease up. And so we're going to look at the estimated number of apartment units and lease up in this first chart. These are units that have been built but have not yet reached stabilized occupancy. And so while they're in that lease up process, they're more likely to be in hyper competition mode, offering big concessions to try to fill up and in turn putting downward pressure on rents in the surrounding market as well. So even if you're not in the lease up business, it's really important to track this because in high supply markets, um, you know, we're seeing downward pressure on rents all the way down to

[Jay Parsons]

the class B's, the Class C's, and

[Host]

in many cases all even down to the subsidized affordable housing and li tech level in many cases. So as of the end of June, here's the data real page shows just under 600,000 units and some stage of lease up across the country. That's a big number. However, it has come down substantially. It was at more than 800,000 units in the early part of 2025. So it's down, but we are still a good bit above normal. Now, if we go back to early 2021, March of 2021, prior to the big surge in demand and in supply.

[Jay Parsons]

If we think about that as a

[Host]

baseline back then we were just north of 500,000 units in lease up. So there's always going to be obviously some chunk of supply and lease up and that's, that's normal. So if we think of somewhere around 500,000 as more normal, ish, or at least a baseline, we're now somewhere, call it 50 to 80k above that baseline today, give or take. So until that number normalizes, I think it's going to be really hard to see a material bump in market occupancies and in rents. Now, as I've talked about a lot in prior episodes, Certainly here in 2026, we are seeing some upward momentum in many markets. Rents are still falling, but to a lesser degree than previously. Occupancy is starting to improve a little

[Jay Parsons]

bit, but I'm talking about for a

[Host]

real rebound in occupancy and rents getting occupancy stabilized, getting normal rent growth again. I think that lease up number needs to come down a good bit more. Okay, the second chart here, it's going to look at rents for new construction. This is anything built since 2020. And I really like this chart because it shows the impact of all the supply in this cycle and also a major headwind for apartment developers who still want to build more apartments sometime in the near future. Okay, so nationally, new construction, rent, new construction rents. Excuse me, they're coming up a little bit, but they're in this here this year. But they're, they're still down about 0.3% from peak set in 2022, I believe.

[Jay Parsons]

So basically flat.

[Host]

We're almost there. However, you know, it's being flat to numbers of four years ago on rents. Like that's, that's, that, that's still a challenge for apartment developers. You know, usually for this type of data, you remember we're looking at new construction rents here. And so typically a new new build in 2026 should be more expensive than something built four years ago, just accounting for normal inflation and construction costs and rents, et cetera. But we've had no growth at all over four years. Construction costs are up, rents are not. And that makes development math harder. Now the second line in this chart is even more interesting. This is the orange line. It shows the highest supplied markets. And specifically this is the 14 major markets of the most construction in this cycle. And so in those spots, new construction rents have been trending upward here a little bit in 2026. However, they're still down 8.6% below the peak from 2022. So again, that means projects delivering today are typically delivering at a lower rent than a comparable project built four years ago in many cases. Now there'll be some compositional changes in the sample, of course, but directionally I think it's still telling us an important story that rents from peak for new construction are down 8.6% even as costs have going up over that time frame. So that makes for some really, really tough math for development. And maybe you can make it work by assuming massive burn off in concessions or just ignoring concessions altogether and pretending like asking rents are all that matter. But that's a big assumption. Now of course, I should also note in fairness, you know, these are macro numbers. There's obviously a lot of variance by submarket and certainly by asset. So there's going to be specific deals that still pencil out and there still are specific deals that pencil out. But for most depend potential development. This is going to be a big headwind for the time being. All right, one last chart I want to show you. This one is showing the same trend across 150 largest markets in the US and so the chart shows two things. The X axis is what is the average rent for a newly built apartment in each metro area. And the Y axis, the up and down one, that is how much has that new construction rent changed relative to the peak since 2020. And again, this is just for apartments built this decade here in the 2000 and twenties. And so it shows a, it just shows how, how much this story varies depending on what part of the country you are in. And so let me just give you

[Jay Parsons]

an example, especially for those of you

[Host]

who can't see the screen, if you're listening without seeing the charts, places like Pensacola and Fort Myers, Florida, new construction rents are down more than 20% compared to the peak. We've also had big declines from peak and new construction rents in places like Fort Walton Beach, Sarasota and Naples. More Florida markets there. Lakeland, Florida is another one. And then elsewhere, among major markets, we see places like Austin and Phoenix that are down just over 15% for new construction rents. Denver is about 12%. Jacksonville is pretty similar. Charlotte's a little more than 9. And then somewhere in the, you know, 7, 8, 9% range we got places like Atlanta, Dallas, Orlando, Tampa, Vegas and even Los Angeles is a lower supply market though it's we've seen obviously softer demand there and rents there are almost down 9% compared to peak for new construction. Nashville notably is only closer to 3%. Raleigh's somewhere around 5%. And then we also have a bunch of places where new construction rents are at all time highs. And these are places where at least on paper it should be a little bit easier for those deals to pencil out. And you have the usual suspects here. You have San Francisco, San Jose, New York, Chicago, a bunch of midwest markets like include including some that are pre supplied like Indianapolis, Columbus, Sioux Falls, but also lower supplied ones like Milwaukee and St. Louis, Kansas City, et cetera. But then we also there are a few Sunbelt market that sneak on this list as well. You know Charleston's a market that's had a lot of supply but the demand story has been fantastic. That one new construction rents are at all time highs. West Palm Beach, Palm beach county, that one has is looking like right now at least the probably the earliest recovery kind of leading the pack in the Sunbelt recovery story in terms of rents overall. And then we also in the Kentucky markets which are kind of a hybrid south versus Midwest and they kind of have more Midwest feel those are up there.

[Jay Parsons]

And then also I give a shout

[Host]

out to the Virginia markets, specifically Richmond and Virginia Beach. Those have been two steady markets there as well. Okay, so there you have it. New construction and lease ups and the impact on rents, what that might mean for the next development cycle. Again, the faster new construction rents recover. You know that's going to be an indicator for when more deals could pencil out again. I don't think we're going to see a massive wave of starts akin to what we saw in 21 and 22. But at some point we're going to see more construction than we have been. I just think it'll be more like we saw pre Covid as opposed to that peak period. Okay, next up, it's time for rental housing trivia. Today's question is presented by Authentic. If you're an owner, asset manager or developer running multifamily, here's the truth about leasing in 2026. A couple of ILS accounts and cross fingers will not get you to stabilization. The properties that are winning are running a tight ship across paid search and social retargeting, email and SMS nurture. All coordinated and with one accountable team. Authentic built that system. They call it demand the door and it's one platform, one partner, one monthly number that scales to your velocity targets. Pod listeners get 50 off setup fees for a limited time. Head to authff.com d2d to see how it works. Okay, so today's question in honor of our guest, Mr. Frank Cassidy is when was the Federal housing administration or FHA, when was it created? And I'm giving you five choices here. Was it in 1934-1944-1965-1986, or 2009? When was FHA created? So give that some thought. Don't Google it, but give it some thought. And you know, I will tell you those years are all tied to something major that happened in housing. And so what year was that that I gave you? And give that some thoughtful answer in a bit. But next up, it's time for in the news. This segment is sponsored by Telecloud. If increasing noi is a priority, your telecom contracts may be one of the easiest opportunities in your portfolio. Telecloud helps multifamily asset managers consolidate Internet voice and dial tone across properties. The average cost reduction is 40% and is often higher than that. To make it easy, they'll start with the free telecom audit to show you exactly where sevens exist before you make a move, learn more@telecloud multisite.com all right, our first headline this week comes from the Wall Street Journal. The headline says a surprising portion of rent stabilized high rents go to New York City's wealthiest renters.

[Jay Parsons]

Okay, so kudos to Wall Street Journal

[Host]

for digging in this topic, obviously a hot one. Now I will tell you, a lot of you aren't necessarily in New York City or operating there. But I want you to know, like this is an important topic to understand because we're seeing rent control press over the country. Obviously we have a vote in Massachusetts ballot measure that was recently thrown out on technicalities likely to come back. We've seen rent control, you know, as part of California, we see Washington state. We've seen in Oregon, we've been seeing it in Minnesota and Maryland. I mean, these pressures are coming in

[Jay Parsons]

a lot of different places and we're

[Host]

seeing reconsideration of it in a lot of other spots as well. So it's important to understand this topic no matter where you are. And so here's the point I want to make in this article and I'll read some snippets of. But I want to say this first, the known flaw, you call it rent stabilization, good cause eviction or rent control, whatever flavor of it you want to call the problem is this, or one of the problems I should say, is this. It's an untargeted benefit, okay? It does not ensure that affordable housing benefits those who really need it, nor does it obviously subsidize those costs for them. Instead, it just gives big unfunded discounts even to high income renters who don't need the benefits. It's untargeted. And there's better targeted approaches to those who need affordable housing. So I'll get into a minute, but as an example of this, famously I believe it's back in the 1980s there was a former mayor of New York City, Ed Cock, who maintained a rent stabilized apartment even while living in the mayoral mansion. So let me just read a couple of snippets from this article. The first, I mean this is a quote. The best housing deals in New York City happen to go to some of the wealthiest renters in the area. According to the Wall Street Journal's analysis of New York City's 2023 housing and vacancy survey, the most recent figures, the top 25% of earners in New York City's rent stabilized apartments pay $1,000 less each month in median rent compared with market rate units. That amounts to a 33% savings in rent. The top 10% of earners save $1300, a 36% discount. Rent stabilized tenants in the lowest 3/4 3 income quartiles meanwhile pay only about 300 less compared with the market rate saving between 15 to 22%. So in other words, the biggest discounts are given to what otherwise would be high income class A renters. And it goes on to say upper income households occupy about 10% of the rent stabilized housing stock. More than 86,700 of those households are earn over $200,000 a year. And here's the thing that, you know, I've raised this point several times. I've never gotten a good answer to this. You know, some pro rent control folks,

[Jay Parsons]

I just, I just don't understand.

[Host]

If you really care about low income households and working class households, why do you not prioritize them? Is it too radical to argue that affordable housing and rent control benefits should really go to those who need it? And some pro rent control voices will say, hey, it should be a universal benefit. And that's like arguing for a flat income tax. There was one person quoted in the Salty Journal article who says that this untargeted rent stabilization, we need it untargeted because it helps people, quote, afford to live in the city that they love. That's not an answer. Yes, if we want people to live in the city they love. But if they can afford to live there in a market rate unit. Why not make the affordable unit, the rent could stabilized unit available to someone who can't otherwise afford to live in

[Jay Parsons]

the city that they love.

[Host]

The rich person is blocking out the lower income person. There was another expert quoted in the article that said, who said that income, they talked about income certification. Maybe we should certify incomes.

[Jay Parsons]

Well, there's experts say no, no, we can't do that.

[Host]

It quote, feels impossible given the program scale of more than a million units. And again, that argument doesn't fly. The federal LIHTC program low income housing tax credit, it's not flawless, but it does administer income certification for something like 4 million affordable housing units. You have to certify that your income is below a certain level to qualify for affordable housing that's four times larger than New York City's rent stabilized program. So it's doable if and only if the priority is on lower income renters. And now typical time. This may surprise you, I word this way, but let me tell you this. Rent control can work if two things happen. Number one, it's targeted to those who need it. And number two, it's subsidized to avoid the reduction in supply. Rent controls always correlated with reduction in supply. Either units being removed from the, from the rental supply stock or fewer units being built to add to it. So that's what programs like the low income housing tax credit, other subsidized low income restricted affordable housing, that's what they can do. It's not without their flaws. We need to prove those things. But it's very targeted and it helped promote new construction because it's funded. So it's funded rent control. It's targeted rent control. And I think it's a more, it's a more empathetic version of rent control because it really addresses those who need it. And LIHTC is that functional form of rent control. So again, I'll end with this. I think it's very cold to tell somebody in New York City who's looking for affordable housing to say basically your policy amounts to this. It amounts to saying this. I'm sorry, these affordable rent stabilized units are not available to you because they're being taken by wealthy people. And yeah, sure they could afford market rate, but you may not understand it right now, but I promise this is in your best interest. That, that just, that's cold. It doesn't make sense. All right, next headline. This will be a quick one. Comes from multifamily Dive Elm reaches deal to sell last property for $250 million. After one sale fell through earlier this year, the reentered an agreement to sell the 222 unit Riverside Apartments in Alexander, Virginia in unrelated development land for about $30 million less.

[Jay Parsons]

Okay, so we've talked about ELM previously.

[Host]

It's in the process of liquidating its assets. And now this final sale, once it goes through would likely mean the shutting of its doors at Elmo. Hate to see another apartment REIT disappear into the history books. This last one is a bit unique and complicated. It's an older tower in Northern Virginia. The new buyer is reportedly FPA. And by the way, speaking of the REITs, we're going to have our quarterly REIT, quarterly apartment REIT podcast next week and got a special guest lined up for that one. Lots to cover in the REIT world these days. And then lastly, one more news item this week. And unfortunately it is a very sad story, a very somber story. Some of you may have heard this. It was from I think it was July 21st or 20th, so a little

[Jay Parsons]

more than a week ago.

[Host]

It's from MPR News in Minnesota. And they it's the headline says 3 dead and shooting inside St. Paul apartment leasing office. So very sad story. The news reports tell us an apartment resident had gone to the leasing office to try to get out of a parking garage contract. He was reportedly told that the contract could not be changed and then reportedly started shooting. And unfortunately, three people were left dead, all who worked for the apartment community, which was Duvern park Apartments in St. Paul, Minnesota. The suspect has since been arrested and is in custody. But the three, three employees were Nancy Fuentes Zambrano, Dina Silcox and Adam Wilwerding. And hopefully I said their names right. But very sad story, terrible tragedy and prayers for the families of the victims.

[Jay Parsons]

All right.

[Host]

So there's no good way to transition from that tragedy to other topics. But let's return to today's trivia presented by my friends at Authentic. The question was when was the Federal Housing Administration created? Was it 1934, 44, 65, 86 or 2009? The answer is a 1934. It was created as part of the National Housing act signed into law by fdr, President Roosevelt during the Great Depression. And its original purpose was to provide mortgage insurance on home loans provided by private bank, private lenders like banks. And the reason wasn't just prop up banks, as we would say in today's speak of, you know, cynicism, but it was really to encourage banks to provide mortgages by giving them that backstop if the that they would have that insurance should that loan go bad, which in turn would help more people be able to get a mortgage and at more affordable terms and at lower down payments. And that that act did do its job. And so the same applied to rental apartments as well, by the way. And so that's an important backstop there as well. Then later, starting in 1942 and beyond, FHA was expanded to help finance apartment construction activity as well. And that's a program we'll talk about a little bit later today with a former head of fha, Frank Cassidy. And that leads us right up in that interview. Okay, so today's interview is sponsored by Funnel, the CRM and Agentic AI platform trusted by four of the six major REITs whose AI recently beat three major competitors across six independent third party conductors conducted blind studies. Nearly three in four renters preferred funnels chat AI, and two and three chose their voice AI. Visit funnelleleasing.com to see it in action and try it yourself. All right, so as promised, today's guest is Frank Cassidy. He is the recently departed Commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration and Assistant Secretary for Housing at the US Housing and Urban Development hud. He just recently announced his return to the private sector at Walker and Dunlop. And we'll talk to him about his time at hud, lessons learned, all the red tape cutting they got done and what's left to be done, the challenges of the political world and what's next in his new role. So let's jump in.

[Jay Parsons]

All right, welcome to the interview portion of today's podcast.

[Host]

And I am honored to welcome in the former commissioner of fha, Frank Cassidy. So, Frank, thank you so much for being here.

[Frank Cassidy]

Jay, thank you for having me on. Great to see you.

[Jay Parsons]

Absolutely. Likewise. And so, Frank, obviously we got a lot of great topics to get into, but I want to start with you. Tell us about how you first got

[Host]

into this wonderful world of multifamily.

[Frank Cassidy]

Yeah, interesting. So I got into the multifamily commercial mortgage banking world, really right in college. I was a junior going into my senior year of college, and I wanted to go to New York City and do the whole investment banking thing. And I stumbled upon a firm called Oppenheimer. They were a brokerage firm, wealth management firm, and believe it or not, they had a smaller commercial banking subsidiary called Oppenheimer Multifamily Housing and Healthcare Finance. And this was 2011, the capital markets had pulled back and they were an agency lender. So they were primarily an FHA HUD insured lender. And they were doing a lot of

business at the time.

So I got close with the, with the CFO of the company who really put me in that division and then invited me to stay on between my

junior year and senior year of college.

And I was getting ready to graduate,

and my boss at the time says,

you know, Frank, what do you want to do? And I said I wanted to go right into origination. Usually it takes, you know, a couple of years as an analyst or junior

underwriter and then partnering with another originator. But I was fortunate enough to talk

my boss at that time into hiring me right as a. Right as an originator day one. So I didn't know a lot about multifamily or agency financing. But, you know, I learned quickly, primarily by just cold calling borrowers across the

country that had existing FHA HUD insured loans.

And this was, this was early 2012,

rates were dropping, and it was a

great time to just refinance, you know,

existing FHA HUD insured loans.

So kind of got the database and targeted these borrowers in many cases would, would go out and see them and

was fortunate enough to get some deals going.

So we built that business to a top FHA HUD lender, about a $4

billion servicing portfolio, and we sold that

to Walker and Dunlop in 2016. So I eventually made my way over to Walker Dunlop and was there for six years before being asked by the administration to come run the fha. So jumped into the administration April of last year, shortly after the President was inaugurated and, you know, had a great

year, almost year and a half there

and got a lot done and, you know, excited about, you know, the changes still to come.

[Jay Parsons]

Yeah. So you just going back a bit then? Tell us about, you know, the whole world of, you know, political appointees and new process. I mean, we all see the headlines and we see your name in a press release. But tell us, how does that, how does it even happen?

[Host]

Like, what went on behind the scenes

[Jay Parsons]

that kind of pulled you into, to HUD fha, and, and also, too, had

[Host]

you ever aspired to work in government?

[Frank Cassidy]

You know, I tell everyone, if you had told me a couple years ago that I would leave my job in the private sector and go work in

the government, I probably would have thought you were crazy.

But with me, you know, the opportunity presented itself and I viewed it as an opportunity to serve the country, particularly in an area that correlates directly with

what I had been doing my entire career.

And I figured it was an Opportunity of a lifetime that if I didn't

take, I would likely regret.

So my wife, she was eight months pregnant at the time, and, you know, I told her I was thinking about,

you know, leaving my job to go work in the government, and she thought I was crazy for a second.

I eventually got her on board and, yeah, jumped right in. Went in day one as the acting FHA commissioner and Assistant Secretary for Housing, and was really able to move quickly, to prioritize things that we wanted to

get done very quickly.

So, you know, early on, you know, you don't really believe it until you get a call one day from the White House and they say they want you to come down and have an interview. So I never really thought it was real until got that call and then had a great meeting with some members of the administration, and then they shortly thereafter followed up and asked me to come on board. So it really was a great opportunity to serve the country, but particularly in an area that you understand, and that correlates with my private sector experience. I mean, a lot of times, you know, appointees that sometimes are placed in certain jobs may not necessarily have, you know, the background for that particular job. Maybe they worked on campaigns or they

were close with the right person, and

they're just thrown into these big positions

and there's a learning curve.

And I think sometimes that's why, you know, you can go a whole administration and things, things don't get done. A lot of times it's just, you know, keep the status quo, keep.

Keep your head down.

But I was able to jump in day one and prioritize a lot of important initiatives and get them done in short order.

[Jay Parsons]

Yeah. So I want to talk about that. Obviously, we've all seen examples of that. It's like, hey, Bob's been a good soldier. Let's find a job for him. Oh, here's. Let's give him this. So you come in with real experience in the private sector, and obviously some of your other colleagues at HUD as well, including Secretary Turner, had some experience with housing, which obviously helps. But give us an example. Somebody tell us a story about maybe was there something in your time, the private sector, you thought, man, like, it sure would be great to get this fixed. And then you get into HUD and fhf, fha, and you made it get better. Can you any kind of stories come up?

[Frank Cassidy]

Absolutely. So, you know, as an originator, working on the front line, working with borrowers,

working really to sign deals up and

get deals done, one thing I always

struggled with was in order to get the lowest mortgage insurance premium for an

FHA multifamily loan, you had to get

your building certified as, as, as a green energy efficient.

And it was really a costly, burdensome and timely process. As you know, Jay, all these buildings are being built to energy efficiency standards anyway. But HUD had a policy that said, look, if you wanted to get the minimum mortgage insurance premium, which is the

interest rate adder to the interest rate, so this is real money, you had to go through that process and get your building certified as green.

And in many cases, Jay, it was

a nightmare just to be able to get the utility data from the, from

the company, be able to show that the building qualified. So it was one of those things where I hit my head on the table for, for years.

And they often said, someone's got to change that.

So when I went into the administration day one, my top priority was to

reduce the multifamily mortgage insurance premium to 25 basis points across the board for all multifamily loan programs and completely get rid of the green energy efficient category.

So that was something that we jumped on day one.

You know, sometimes major changes like that can take years, but we were able to get that done good in less than six months.

So what that did, Jay, was every FHA multifamily loan now gets the statutory

minimum mortgage insurance premium of 25 basis points.

So it removed every other category and a streamline and made the process much more efficient. And even more than that, we had,

I think, 10,000 or so loans that had already gotten the green energy certification. And every year they were paying about $5,000 just to get a report saying that they were still in compliance.

And that's something that did very little, almost nothing for hud.

It was just a costly and burdensome

report for the borrowers and time consuming

on the lenders and HUD's part. So what we did was, was we scratched that completely. So when you look at 5,000 loans or $5,000 times 10,000 loans, I mean, that's millions and millions of dollars. A bureaucratic red tape that was slashed overnight.

So I was thrilled and happy to be able to jump in to that policy change day one and really push

it through the system.

[Jay Parsons]

Yeah, that's great. I think everybody in the industry who's dealt with this in any capacity knows that the lead certification is just an expensive plaque recognizing something you're doing anyway. So that's a great accomplishment. So, Frank? Well, as you look back, your time at FHA and hud, what other, what are you most proud of from your time there?

[Frank Cassidy]

I say, Jay, the biggest thing that I was able to do was initiate

a cultural change amongst HUD and the multifamily FHA staff.

Usually the FHA commissioner comes from the single family world.

[Host]

Yeah.

[Frank Cassidy]

When you look at FHA as a

whole, it's a $2 trillion mortgage insurance portfolio. It's roughly one out of five mortgages in the country.

And it's primarily the gateway to first

time home ownership on the single family side.

Right. So of the 2.2 trillion, 1.8 trillion is the single family world. So usually somebody who steps into the

role as FHA commissioner comes from the single family side. And multifamily is not prioritized and often overlooked.

So what I was able to do

was jump in as somebody who understood the multifamily side of the business, who worked on the multifamily loan programs. I mean, pretty much Every program from 221D4 to 223F to 241, you know, I had done and had experience with.

So I was able to meet with

a lot of the top HUD career staff and all the regional offices across

the country and really coach and help

them figure out ways to responsibly get to yes on deals.

HUD had a reputation for a program that was typically, hey, let's find a

way to say no.

And what I had said to the

top career staff was, look, we're in the middle of a housing affordability crisis. We need to support the housing sector

and we need to find ways to

do deals and get to yes responsibly.

When you look at the, the default

rates amongst the multifamily portfolio, I mean,

it's less than 0.20 of 1% of FHA multifamily loans go into default. So there was certainly room to look at deals in a way to, to get to yes. So I really enjoyed that. I think the career staff at HUD

appreciated having somebody that actually understood what, what they did and in many cases understood these, these loan programs as well, if not better than them.

So they really bought into the cultural change.

And if you look at the numbers,

you know, we were able to do

more business last year than we've ever done in a high interest rate environment. And now we're on track this year to even exceed that. So I think the cultural change was

really the big thing. And I think there was a lot of excitement amongst the multifamily career staff

at hud and they embraced a lot of our Changes.

[Jay Parsons]

No, that's great. Yeah. I'll tell you, Frank, I mean, obviously you know these programs significantly better than

[Host]

I do, but I can't tell how

[Jay Parsons]

many times I heard over the years that, yeah, the HUD has these great programs for construction loans.

[Host]

Everything just takes too long, we can't use it.

[Jay Parsons]

So I imagine it must be satisfying to be able to hopefully make those

[Host]

programs more, more viable.

[Frank Cassidy]

Yeah, I mean, Jay, you make a great point. Look, when, when FHA was started in 1934, it was the Great Depression, FDR

started FHA because people couldn't get mortgages.

And they came up with all these different programs in the National Housing act to support the housing industry and ultimately

just guarantee a loan that a private lender makes.

I don't think anyone, when they came

up with these programs said, look, look, we're going to offer 35 year to 40 year fixed rate long term financing, but it's going to take a year to get these loans right.

What happened over the years, like many

things in government, there's just been so much bureaucratic red tape that has been

added to the process and has created a situation where, you know, these deals

take far longer than they need to take. And my whole philosophy was, look, let's get back to the mission. Let's get back to the mission of supporting the private sector in terms of bringing more housing online.

So, you know, in many cases we were able to move, you know, much,

much quicker than historical.

I'll give you, I'll give you one example.

Not necessarily on the multifamily side, but on the senior housing and healthcare side where, you know, I knew those programs very well. When I started In April of 2025, we had a problem with. We had 70 so projects that were

in the queue at FHA just awaiting

an underwriter to pick up the deal. And it was taking three to four months just for a deal to get picked up.

So I met with the top career staff and we put in place an

express lane where we said certain low risk deals with experienced borrowers who had been through the process before are going to be prioritized and they're not going to wait in the queue.

So the goal was to get commitments

issued in seven to 14 days.

And we had some deals that we

were getting firm commitments issued in two to three days.

And the queue ended up going from

70 projects down to zero. Right. Right before the government.

So it really was an example of

embracing private sector efficiencies. And the express lane still lives on today. It's been A huge success.

And we looked at duplicating that on

the multifamily side, particularly as it relates to LIHTC new construction deals. As you know, Jay, those deals are typically low risk. They've been under, you know, many times over. They're in HUD's mission and they're low, they're low loan to cost.

So one of the changes that should

hopefully be coming out soon, and we, we submitted this before I left, is a LIHTEC Express lane program for 221 D4s. And the goal there is to do a direct to firm submission, get a commitment issued in 30 days and get the deal closed quickly.

[Jay Parsons]

Yeah, that's great. I'm sure a lot of people on the affordable side be happy to hear that. So Frank, obviously had an impactful time in the federal government. Why did you leave when you did?

[Frank Cassidy]

Yeah, so look, when I initially told the White House, you know, I'd step on board, I said I'd do one to two years.

My wife was eight months pregnant at the time. I was back and forth between Philadelphia

and D.C. so, you know, I felt like the timing was right to jump back to the private sector.

I was able to get a lot done very early on in the administration

and put, you know, a lot of good things in place that should hopefully come out soon. And you know, I felt like it was just my, my time to return to the private sector and get back to doing deals.

[Jay Parsons]

Good, good. I want to ask you just something I've always wondered about is that obviously anytime you work for a big employer, public or private, there's going to be

[Host]

times when you disagree with the bosses. But it seems like it's different when

[Jay Parsons]

you're a political appointee. So I'm curious when you have periods of things you disagree with and throwing out example like let's ban institutional investors. I'm single. Family houses.

[Host]

How do you balance kind of the

[Jay Parsons]

loyalties to the job versus what you know and believe?

[Host]

And is there room for, to voice

[Jay Parsons]

an opposing view in a situation like that?

[Frank Cassidy]

Well, look, government is a very different

animal from the private sector. You know, I knew very little about government and how the inner workings of government worked before I joined the administration. I was in the private sector my, my entire career.

And I guess what I would, what I would say is that the main difference is that in the private sector

the motivation is profit.

[Jay Parsons]

Right.

[Frank Cassidy]

If everyone's making money, everyone's happy. In the government, you don't have that motivation. Right.

It's more, it's More mission based.

So in terms of like, hey, if

deals take 30 days or deals take

90 days, the motivation isn't there, right? So a lot of it is educational. It's, you know, it's having meetings and

having discussions about, you know, why we should be doing one policy versus another. A lot of times it's educational and, you know, it is very much a balancing act.

And I think that is ultimately why

it is very hard to get things done in government.

I mean, what I've learned is that

government is almost like a giant cruise ship, right?

It's meant to go straight, very, very slow. And you can move it a little left, you can move it a little right, but it's very, very hard to, to change course.

And I think government, you know, intentionally

is set up that way, but it can certainly make it challenging if you

want to make change very, very quickly.

And, you know, it was, it was frustrating.

I certainly brought that originator mentality to, to the government, right. Like, I'm used to the private sector. When you sign a deal up, you do everything you can to get that deal closed, right. Every day.

Government's not, not quite like that, but you really need to get the wheels

of government all working together at the same time in order to get policy moved. Early on in the administration is really a great time to get things done because a lot of these positions aren't filled yet or are starting to get filled.

So early on day one, I was

able to jump in and push a lot of these initiatives through. But as more people come in, more

people want to know, well, what's going on over here? What's going on there? And it tends to slow things down. And ultimately, you know, you only have

a couple years to really get things done.

You have the midterms coming up.

The political tailwinds in D.C. can change.

So it's a small window to really get changes done.

And a lot of people had recommended to me, look, Frank, pick a couple things that you want to try to get done and just do everything you can to push them across the finish line. So the mortgage insurance premium reduction was a big one. We did a couple of big things on the single family side. On the 232 program, it was the express lane.

And, you know, a lot of it was all about deregulating and making these

programs more efficient because ultimately there's ways to do that that don't increase any additional risk. Right.

And there's even ways to do it to make the programs less risky.

Right.

You can make the programs move Faster

and more efficient at the same time, reduce risk.

So that was what I was always focused in on.

[Jay Parsons]

Yeah, yeah, that makes less. I appreciate your candor there. I'd imagine that beyond the mission base, regardless of the administration, there's going to be political things too, and people who are more focused on politics than policy. That's got to be frustrating at times. So. And that takes me to the next topic. You know, the Road to Housing Act.

[Host]

And I don't, I won't, I don't

[Jay Parsons]

want to pin you down the SFR stuff. I want to ask you more broadly. You know, I've seen a lot of different takes on this, this bill, which is, hey, this is the biggest housing

[Host]

bill in 40 years to.

[Jay Parsons]

I saw, I think it was one of the big home, I think was Dr. Horton one of the big home builders in the last earnings call, you

[Host]

know, very politely sort of called it a nothing burger in terms of supply

[Jay Parsons]

and they used a much better phrasing than I did. And so I'm curious, like, how do you see that bill and in terms of housing production and do you think it really, really will help, like, accelerate supply?

[Frank Cassidy]

Yeah.

Well, first, Jay, you did a great job covering the Road to Housing bill. Thank you. I enjoyed following you along on LinkedIn

because you're able to take your very

complex issues and boil it down in layman's term. I do think that the Road to

Housing bill is a big win for the administration. I think it's the biggest piece of housing legislation to pass since the Low Income Housing Tax Credit.

And I do think there is a

lot of great stuff in there. Is it perfect?

No. But does it ultimately help move the

needle on housing affordability? Absolutely.

One particular example, Jay, is I didn't

know a lot about manufactured housing before I joined HUD. I oversaw HUD's Office of Manufactured Housing. So I was forced to learn very quickly.

And if you look at what road

does with manufactured housing, it has the potential to, to change, change the game. HUD oversees the design, the build, the construction and installation of manufactured homes. So it's one set of federal standards.

And because of that, manufactured homes have

always been, you know, single story, you

know, rancher type homes that are put

on a truck and have what's called a steel chassis right on the, on the first floor. And that's always been the definition of a manufactured home having a steel chassis. So what Road to Housing does is it removes that steel chassis requirement which

then allows for these homes to be

just built on, put, put on top of foundation and second and third stories. Right.

So it really kind of merges manufactured

and modular housing, and it creates a scenario where you could build housing in a factory, potentially much, much less costly and much, much quicker.

Right. And I think that as technology continues

to advance, it has the potential to change, you know, how housing is built in this country. Because, look, you can build housing, you

know, very, very quickly and for.

For less cost, and as construction costs rise, that's going to be important.

So I think ROAD to housing creates a lot of potential in that regard.

And there's some other great things, like the FHA multifamily stat limit increases.

You know, look, I do think the,

you know, the single family Wall street

thing, it's an issue that you've talked a lot about, Jay, and I think, you know, right or wrong, it's something

that's very popular, and it polls very well.

So, you know, I don't know if ROAD really ultimately moves the needle on

that, because as you pointed out, it's not a huge percentage of homes.

It is in certain markets, but politically, it's an issue that, you know, poll polls very well. So I think that the administration, you know, ultimately set the agenda through executive

orders, and Congress moved and acted. And I think road's a big bipartisan win that I was happy to be involved with during my time in D.C.

[Jay Parsons]

yeah, no, it's unfortunate the SFR stuff had to be. And I don't want to sidetrack us too much. I think what frustrates me about that

[Host]

whole thing is that it feeds into

[Jay Parsons]

the narrative that that's the problem in housing, as opposed to all the things

[Host]

that you and I know are really

[Jay Parsons]

the problem, which is really a lack of supply.

[Frank Cassidy]

And so it's a lack of supply. Ultimately, you can't subsidize your way out

of a house in crisis. You can only build your way out of a house in crisis.

And that's what we need to do

to focus in as policymakers in this country. Let's build more housing. Let's make it easier for developers to build. Let's cut down on red tape. Let's not have environmental reviews that take years.

If you look at, you know, markets like California and New York, housing is

not affordable because they're not building any new housing.

Look at markets like, like Austin.

There's not a housing shortage there. Right. They've been building like crazy.

So what we need to do from the federal level is incentivize these local

governments and municipalities to adopt best practices to support the private sector in building more housing. When you look at the cost to build housing, you know, 20 to 40% is some form of bureaucratic red tape.

And that's really the.

That's really the bureaucratic tax that ultimately gets passed along to the consumer. Right. Rather be a homeowner or a. Or a renter, that cost gets ultimately

passed down to the.

To the end user. So the more that the federal government can do to prioritize pro supply policies, I think the more affordable housing can become.

[Jay Parsons]

I absolutely agree. And Frank, that reminds me, I want to ask you a question about LI Tech in particular, because obviously you're very familiar affordable housing. And this is to be a very naive question, but sometimes I see these stories about how in Los Angeles it costs $1 million per unit to build affordable housing with Li Tech program. They added all these requirements about, you know, what materials are and where they

[Host]

get shipped from and all this stuff and carbon tax.

[Jay Parsons]

And I wonder, it's like, why wouldn't

[Host]

the administration or a future administration say,

[Jay Parsons]

hey, look, if you want to use federal LI Tech dollars, you got to play by these rules? Because we want these dollars to go

[Host]

as far as possible in terms of,

[Jay Parsons]

you know, dollars per unit produced. So, like, how hard would it be?

[Host]

Or is this just a pipe dream

[Jay Parsons]

to say, hey, look, California or, you know, L. A, whoever, if you want to use this money, do it. But you're going to play by our

[Host]

rules, not your rules to some degree.

[Frank Cassidy]

Yeah. I mean, look, what you just described

is ultimately the bureaucratic tax, right?

[Jay Parsons]

Yeah.

[Frank Cassidy]

That's why it's a million dollars to build in L. A and nowhere near

that in markets like Austin.

And ultimately that cost gets passed along to the consumer. So ultimately, the federal government should be

looking at those dollars and they should

be putting in place carrots and incentives to build cheaper. But it's a political football, right? I mean, for every policy change on

one side, there's somebody on the other side who's trying to kill it.

Just take a look at Davis Bacon

wage rates, for example.

That's something that in many markets has

made housing much more, much more costly than it needs to be to build.

That was an issue that I was very interested in and ultimately wanted to

get some relief on Davis Bacon, particularly as it relates to FHA Multifamily 221D4 financing.

If you look at the Davis Bacon

requirements on a D4, four stories or less is residential wage rates and four stories or more is commercial wage rates. You know, there's a reason why 90% of all D4s are four stories or less, because as soon as you go into that commercial threshold, your costs go up 20, 30, in some cases 40%.

Imagine if we just raised that four

stories up to six stories, right. How much more housing we would have in this country.

And there's, there's no, there's very little

cost increase between building at four stories or building at five stories.

[Jay Parsons]

Yeah, yeah. I saw a similar thing in New York. I'm sure you're familiar with this, where they pass some, you know, their program there that said if you build 100 units or more, it's going to be this. And so everybody's building night. The number of 98, 99 unit buildings

[Host]

in New York is crazy right now

[Jay Parsons]

because nobody wants that added threshold of additional labor costs. So, you know, stuff like that just backfires. Well, Frank, let me ask you this. You know, we could go all day talking about all the red tape that still is out there. But I want to. You've kind of alluded to this, but what for those of everybody's kind of. Now you're on the side. You're. You're watching this in the private sector and for others in private sector. What are you hoping to see come out of HUD and FHA these next

[Host]

couple of years during this current administration

[Jay Parsons]

and specifically as it relates to multifamily BTR and rental housing at large?

[Frank Cassidy]

Yeah, yeah, great question. So before I left the administration, we put in place, we were calling it

the Kitchen Sink Multifamily Mortgage E letter.

And every day we're just adding to it and adding to it. And that's in process right now. I hope it should clear in the

next month or so.

But that will have the LIHTC express lane.

It should have some great changes related to the 221D4 program to make that program more efficient in terms of underwriting and vacancies. There should be some relief there.

And ultimately it's a very deregulatory mortgage

E letter that should make FHA multifamily programs much more attractive and more efficient.

So I'm excited to see that coming. On the BTR issue, we ultimately had to hit pause on that when I

was in the administration because there was just so much political back and forth and we didn't know which direct, which direction things were going to go.

But ultimately with the D4 program, I think we're now in a, in a place where we can try to use

the D4 program on BTR deals. I think there's going to Be a mortgage letter coming out very soon that is going to give a lot of clarity and will make it easier to build BTR deals with the 221 D4 program. My former colleague, Lamar Seats is the multifamily Deputy Assistant Secretary. Super sharp guy, understands these issues. He came from the industry like myself,

and he's doing a great job there. And I think we're going to see

some, some great changes in regards to the FHA multifamily programs coming very soon.

[Jay Parsons]

Great. Love to hear it. And Frank, one last question for you. You're back at Walker and Dunlop, so

[Host]

what's next for you?

[Frank Cassidy]

So just doing my part from the outside, working with developers all across the country to really bring my knowledge now

from the inside in terms of how

deals get done and how fha, HUD

and even Fannie Freddy operate behind the scenes to help borrowers get their deals done, you know, as quickly and as seamlessly as possible.

Those relationships within the building really are

so important, especially when it comes to large, complicated deals that, you know, oftentimes

what I noticed at FHA and HUD

is that, you know, sometimes if a career doesn't have an answer, a deal will just sit there. Right.

So you need to be able to navigate. Okay, well, you know, who do we

need to talk to to get the answer? And just having that knowledge behind the scenes as to, you know, how decisions ultimately are made at the highest level is something I'm excited to be able to capitalize on. I've been meeting with a lot of large borrowers all across the country and

educating them on, you know, FHA and, you know, the, you know, the power

of FHA financing and how some of these often overlooked programs are changing now for the better.

[Jay Parsons]

Well, Frank, I appreciate all you've done for, for housing and obviously taking more than a year, it'd probably take a big pay cut and help contribute to the solution on some of these things. And, and I wish you all the best in this next chapter as well. So thank you so much for being on the program today.

[Frank Cassidy]

Okay, thanks for having me on and keep up the great work for the industry.

[Jay Parsons]

Thank you. Foreign.

[Host]

Big thank you to Frank for being our guest today. Thank you to JPI Madera Funnel Authentic, their Kirkland company Telecloud, and also big shout out to my friends at Apartment Life and thank you to all of you for spending part of your week with us. We'll see you next time.