Loan Think

Our world has become so electronic and not personal that it doesn't take much for people to feel that you care and for you to deepen your relationships.

It appears that a flip-flop of sorts is happening in regard to the FHA and VA programs.

n this season of high political drama it is not really surprising that potential candidates, as well as a myriad of federal agencies, are all jockeying for the most complimentary spot in the limelight. The National Fair Housing Alliance is no exception.

With all of the debate over health care in this country, there is one tried and true way for employers to keep down their costs in this area—taking an active interest in the health and well being of your workers. For businesses like mortgage origination, which have tight operating margins, saving money in the area of health care adds to the bottom line.

For a year now the government owned Ally Financial has kept mum on the idea of throwing ResCap into bankruptcy protection but the self imposed gag order came off late Friday night, squirreled away in the folds of a new 148-page SEC filing.

Field service companies have put more emphasis on pre-sale mitigation, auditing the work they complete, and concentrating on other ways to protect the value of REO properties in pre-sale in the future.

By now, thousands of readers have viewed our coverage (both in print and online) of eWarehouseOne, the mysterious warehouse lender that appears to have collected at least $250,000 in application and good faith checks, and doesn’t have a whole lot of lines of credit to show for it. After two months of investigating the company and talking to roughly 20 sources, we’ve come to the conclusion that the man running the show is Tom Reynolds, once listed as EVP in charge of warehouse lending. The problem is this: none of the account executives hired by the company (some of whom have left) have ever met Reynolds, though they’ve spoken to him on the phone.

Many loan officers have been in the mortgage business forever (10 years seems to be the norm). Some have been in the business only for a short period of time. They’ve learned by doing—taking licensing courses, intra-company training, etc. But have you “mastered” your job to the best of your ability?

It’s no secret that the mortgage industry – after hearing from its customers – is clamoring for a HARP 3.0 refi solution for underwater loans that are not guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But how do we get there?

Last week, the CFPB issued a compliance bulletin confirming that it would follow the disparate impact theory in advancing claims of discriminatory lending practices. The importance of the disparate impact theory is that it does not require a showing of intentional discrimination. Rather, it simply requires the government to show that a lender’s policies and/or practices resulted in a discriminatory outcome-regardless of the intent.