Loan Think

The CFPB surprised many when its proposals announced earlier this month contained a provision to eliminate certain critical differences between brokers and creditors concerning the compensation of loan officers. This may not, however, be as significant for brokers as it may first appear.

With more effective outreach to municipalities and better internal processes, servicers can minimize their risks of code violations and stiff penalties, and build stronger relationships with code enforcement departments to protect the condition and value of properties in their portfolios.

On Wednesday industry officials met with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to discuss the agency’s new proposal to reengineer how loan officers and brokers can make a living. To call it a nightmare might be an understatement, we were told by attendees.

“I would never stoop so low as to spy on my competition,” one loan officer said to me recently. Why not? Don’t think for a minute that they don’t know what you are up to.

Does anyone in government feel sorry enough for jumbo borrowers that they would design a HARP program to help these (presumably) high net worth individuals take advantage of a 3.5% fixed-rate mortgage?

I like to set goals. It's a sickness.

Now, the CFPB will step-in and investigate reports of non-compliant mortgage servicing companies, and possibly enforce hefty fines.

Lenders that order appraisals to support mortgage loans may be tempted, as a cost control measure or otherwise, to limit the number of approaches to value that an appraiser uses in performing the appraisal. But those lenders, and their AMCs, should proceed with caution. The uniform appraisal standards, known as USPAP, recognize three main approaches to value: the sales-comparison approach, the cost approach, and the income approach.

Political races bring on all sorts of silly comparisons so why not take a stab at asking this: who would produce a more profitable mortgage banking company: President Obama or Mitt Romney?

In baseball, there are the written rules and the unwritten rules on how to play the game. Many of these unwritten rules are things you don't do on the field, in other words they make up a code of behavior.