The Washington Report

On September 21, the Bipartisan Congressional Real Estate Caucus sent a letter urging the U.S. Copyright Office to reconsider or delay a proposed increase in the fee used by multiple listing services (MLSs) to register updates to their databases. The proposal would raise the registration fee from $500 to $700 per filing, only six years after fees increased from $85 to $500. The letter was led by Representatives Mark Alford (R-Mo.) and Lou Correa (D-Calif.). Congress has until November 12 to approve or disapprove of the fee schedule.

NAR worked with the bipartisan group of lawmakers to raise concerns about the proposed fee increase. The letter asks the Copyright Office to explain why MLSs are being charged more than the agency's reported cost of providing the service, why MLSs remain limited to an outdated paper-based registration process while most applicants can file electronically, and its rationale for refusing to revisit the increase. The lawmakers also requested a timeline for electronic MLS registration and asked the Office to respond within 14 days.

Copyright registration and the protection it provides is critical. It allows MLSs to enforce their rights in federal court and seek statutory damages and attorneys' fees when listing content or database compilations are copied, scraped, or misused without permission. NAR's analysis shows that MLS registrations have declined as fees have increased, raising concerns that additional fee hikes could further reduce registrations and weaken access to these important legal protections.

The congressional letter follows NAR's meeting with Copyright Office staff and the submission of written comments to the Office objecting to the proposed fee increase. In this meeting, NAR raised the growing challenges posed by AI-powered scraping and unauthorized use of real estate content. NAR reiterated concerns laid out in written comments regarding the fee increase, the agency's cost methodology, and the lack of an electronic filing option for MLSs, but those discussions yielded neither clarity nor progress toward a compromise. 

Now key members of Congress are writing to the Office and raising NAR’s concerns ahead of the November-12 congressional fee review deadline. The lawmakers also encouraged the Office to work with MLS stakeholders on reforms that lower costs, expand electronic access, and preserve strong copyright protections without another disproportionate fee increase.

NAR will continue working with lawmakers, the MLS community, and other stakeholders to support a modern registration process and reasonable fees that encourage, rather than discourage, copyright registration.

Read the Congressional letter to the US Copyright Office

On September 25, the White House sent Congress a request to cancel $810 million in previously approved federal spending across 11 programs, including $56.1 million for HUD's Housing Counseling Assistance program. That amount is nearly all of the $58 million Congress provided for housing counseling in FY 2025, the same funding HUD made available to counseling agencies earlier this year. HUD's announcement of that funding excluded prepurchase counseling as an eligible activity and limited post-purchase counseling to homeowners with federally backed mortgages. NAR has pressed HUD and Congress to restore prepurchase counseling, and in June the House Appropriations Committee adopted NAR-supported language backing prepurchase counseling as part of its FY 2027 HUD spending bill.

With the funds set to expire on September 30, the request is considered a “pocket rescission." Federal budget law allows the President to ask Congress to cancel funding and to hold the money for 45 days while Congress considers the request. When the request arrives this late in the fiscal year, the money can expire before Congress acts. On September 29, the Government Accountability Office, Congress's nonpartisan watchdog, concluded that the law does not allow the Administration to hold these funds past the end of the fiscal year, since Congress's review period would run until at least November 9. The Administration has rejected GAO's position on pocket rescissions before. When it used the same approach last year, the Supreme Court allowed the funds to be withheld in a preliminary order that did not decide the underlying legal question.

The request drew criticism from both Republicans and Democrats, including the chair and vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who argued it undermines Congress's authority over federal spending.

NAR has long supported housing counseling as a way to help buyers enter and stay in the market. In its FY 2027 appropriations letter, NAR noted that the share of first-time buyers has fallen to a record low of 21 percent and pointed to studies showing that buyers who complete education and counseling are less likely to experience delinquency and foreclosure. Homeowners who receive foreclosure mitigation counseling are almost three times more likely to receive a loan modification than similar borrowers who were not counseled.

NAR is engaging with Congress on the rescission request and its impact on housing counseling.

On September 30, a federal judge required HUD to keep $57.5 million in housing counseling funds available while a lawsuit challenging the Administration's request to cancel them moves forward. The funds, which Congress provided for fiscal year 2025, would otherwise have expired at midnight.

The National Urban League and nine other housing counseling organizations filed the suit on September 29, four days after the White House asked Congress to cancel nearly all of the program's funding. The groups argue that the Administration cannot withhold money Congress directed HUD to spend unless Congress votes to cancel it, and that the request penalizes grantees for their advocacy in violation of the First Amendment. They are also challenging the limits HUD placed on the funding earlier this year, including the exclusion of prepurchase counseling and the restriction of post-purchase counseling to homeowners with federally backed mortgages.

The Department of Justice opposed keeping the funds available, arguing the court lacked authority to extend the deadline. The judge disagreed, pointing to federal law and appeals court decisions that allow courts to preserve funds while a lawsuit over them is pending. The order does not decide the merits of the case or require HUD to award the funds at this stage. The Administration's full response is due October 9 and the plaintiffs' reply is due October 19, after which the court will determine whether to hold a hearing.

NAR has long supported housing counseling as a way to help buyers enter and stay in the market and is engaging with Congress on the rescission request and its effect on access to counseling services. NAR will continue to monitor the litigation as it moves forward.

On September 28, 2026, the United States Senate passed S. 4395 by unanimous consent. The bill is a clean seven-year extension of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) through 2034. NAR supported the bill ahead of its approval by the Senate Banking Committee last month. TRIA helps keep terrorism insurance available, and many commercial real estate loans require that coverage.

Both chambers have now passed seven-year extensions, but the bills differ. The House bill, H.R. 7128, adds two changes to Treasury's certification process: a 90-day deadline for decisions and a higher loss threshold for certifying an event, from $5 million to $10 million beginning in 2029. The House and Senate must pass identical legislation before it can go to the president.

NAR will continue working with congressional leaders and coalition partners to enact a long-term TRIA reauthorization this year, well before the program expires on December 31, 2027.

Read NAR's Letter of Support

Read the Coalition Letter

On September 30, 2026, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs) announced an effective delay to the November 2 mandate to require appraisals in the Uniform Appraisal Dataset 3.6 reporting. Lenders who are not ready to make the transition by November 2 may apply for a policy exception, allowing them to submit legacy appraisals until May 19, 2027. However, after February 28, loans secured by legacy appraisal reports will not be eligible for collateral representation and warranty (R&W) relief for value.

NAR recognizes its appraiser members and congratulates the work they have and continue to do to accommodate the transition.