Loan Think

On Oct. 3, Mark Alan Helsing, a broker for "hard-money lenders," pleaded guilty to multiple felony counts for stealing $6.9 million from investors in a Ponzi and real estate fraud scheme, authorities said. He faces a potential term of 15 years in prison at his sentencing Dec. 5 by Superior Court Judge Craig E. Robison.

This past Thursday we got to spend some time on the phone with Bank of America’s top consumer sales executive for mortgages, Matthew J. Vernon, who has a message for the industry: B of A is committed to retail lending—and retaining its top LOs. Vernon said the bank also is actively recruiting LOs from other shops. (And as well all know, B of A has lost a few top producers itself). For the full story see the Monday edition of National Mortgage News. Don’t subscribe? Call 800-221-1809…

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."