"The financial crisis spawned by the confluence of rapid real estate price appreciation and easy mortgage credit paved the way for The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, HR 4173 (aka the Dodd-Frank Reform Act), now on the cusp of enactment. The new legislation is rooted in the principles set forth in the Obama Administration's June 2009 white paper on rebuilding financial supervision and regulation, to which both houses of Congress have added their own ideas.

While Congress has been negotiating the bill into compromise legislation, the financial services industry, investors, federal and state regulators, and courts have begun changing the process and rules by which consumer financial products will be financed and delivered...

Perhaps the most significant consumer financial product reforms concern home mortgages."