Loan Think

By now you know the story: there are plenty of potential home buyers out there, but underwriting standards are too tight to accommodate them, so slowly but quietly ‘hard money’ lenders are on the rise.

In case you missed our exclusive report on the Monday National Mortgage News website, here's a bit of news: John Robbins, who exited the business about six years ago, is about to launch a new lending platform – a retail/wholesale shop at that.

I recently viewed a cable television special on hot dogs and as part of the show it featured some of the great marketing campaigns that helped to distinguish a very commoditized product from the competition.

This past weekend we published a blog about how hard it was for customers and members of the media to contact Seterus, the residential servicing division of IBM. Over the weekend, one veteran mortgage banking executive who we've known for years weighed in on the matter.

I often wonder if the Treasury Department—which owns Fannie Mae—has actually tried to call (on the telephone) Seterus, the servicing division of IBM that the GSE is apparently using to handle its lousy loans.

Next week the National Mortgage News website will publish a story about some improving numbers in wholesale production, but in the meanwhile we keep hearing stories about firms growing their presence in table funding.

We keep hearing reports that a former Freddie Mac official (post the federal takeover) is working on creating a 'mega' platform to originate loans. We have a name and presently are trying to confirm details.

There might be some Veterans Affairs loan program funding fee changes on Oct. 1st—or maybe not!

By now, most of know that the second quarter was not pretty when it came to residential origination volumes. On Monday National Mortgage News will publish its final 2Q rankings.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is dominated by mortgage/banking hating socialists hell bent on destroying the U.S. economy. At least that's the perception you get from talking to some rabid industry executives who were hoping to kill the agency before it ever got off the ground.