It was barely a few months ago, albeit a few thousand degrees ago, that I moderated a panel of mortgage types from the major banks, including the Mortgage Bankers Association’s new president David Stevens, formerly FHA commissioner.

Stevens and I have been talking housing for many years now, so I’m well aware that he is not exactly the ambivalent type.

When I suggested to the panel that the risk of a double-dip in housing was great and that winding down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now could be detrimental to the housing market, Stevens was adamant that housing was well into recovery, and all those home price and mortgage delinquency reports I was citing were backward looking and not indicative of the current state of the market.

Now Stevens is reversing course.

This morning he put out a statement advocating a continuation of the higher loan limits at the GSE’s (Fannie and Freddie) and the FHA for one more year. “The temporary loan limits authorized by Congress have benefited consumers and the housing market during what has been a turbulent period for our nation’s economy,” Stevens said in the statement. “That decline is not over yet.”

The statement was a little dry for me, knowing the source, so I called Stevens for a little elaboration. He stated right from the get-go that he is still bullish about the future of the housing market, which is not exactly saying he feels great about it right now.

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