Loan Think

The news that insurance company MetLife is giving up on mortgage banking is not something the industry likes to hear. What makes it so odd is that MetLife has only been in the business for three years and has no “legacy” issues to speak of.

The mortgage division of MetLife has been going great guns in residential finance for two years now. Not only is the bank/insurance company the 12th largest residential funder in the U.S., it has a strong presence in correspondent, warehouse finance, and reverses. So why is the parent company now peddling the mortgage division?

Do you have customers complete surveys? Do you solicit (or get unsolicited) testimonials? Do real estate agents tell you what a good job you've done? (Well, maybe I'm stretching this one a little bit.) The most powerful people on your marketing team are your past clients and real estate agents!

John Robbins, the ageless former chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association, is reentering the residential finance business with a new company called Bexil American Mortgage, a retail/wholesale lender. But will it actually service loans?

At the MBA convention in Chicago today consultant Brian Chappelle of Potomac Partners said it best when he noted that Congress, regulators (and the White House) are "going after the whole mortgage system for problems that no longer exist, and that has a suffocating effect on the marketplace."

With the untimely passing of Steve Jobs last week, the world lost one of its master marketers.

The California Department of Industrial Relations alleges that over a four-year period, ZipRealty paid its real estate agent employees “less than the minimum wage and no premium for overtime hours worked” because the real estate brokerage improperly classified its agents as outside contractors. The lawsuit requests at least $7.5 million in wages, $1.25 million in overtime and $9 million in penalties.

It's only been 10 days, but lenders in the primary market are starting to feel the effects of lower GSE loan limits. Ilan Awerbach, a vice president at UniTrust Mortgage of San Diego tells us that the "lower loan limits are definitely being felt here in California -- as I imagine they are on both coasts."

This past week National Mortgage News broke several updates on the bank, including its decision to exit FHA/VA cash-out refis, the collapse of talks with Fortress over its correspondent unit, its decision to exit six states, and the departure of one of its top retail LOs, Kevin Budde.

Ex-Presidents seem to love the mortgage industry. After seeing former President George W. Bush at a recent industry show in Dallas, I have now seen all the living ex-presidents in mortgage-related sightings!