Loan Think

On June 20, Brett Matheson pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a $50 million mortgage fraud scheme based in Phoenix. Two others have also entered guilty pleas and are awaiting sentencing.

Over the time span of about a month Bank of America has lost a top residential lending executive (Doug Jones) and its warehouse chief, industry veteran Paul Szymanski. Both were hired away by PennyMac, a tiny (in comparison to B of A, at least) publicly traded REIT. In normal times it would be unheard of to go from a megabank to a small shop but we’re living in anything but normal times.

Will Bank of America's purchase of Countrywide Financial Corp. go down in the history as the worst mortgage franchise purchase in world history? Chances are, the answer to that question is a resounding yes.

If there is anyone thing marketers seek to do in their programs about their company, its product and/or services, is to create buzz. The social media can create buzz much faster than any other method.But as social media expert Randall Craig elaborates, creating buzz is a game of "follow the leader."

Short sale fraud is estimated to rise by 25% in this year of 2011. Unnecessary losses related to risky short sales are approximately $375 million annually according to CoreLogic.

To be a successful salesperson, one must listen to the wants and needs of the prospect so they can properly craft a pitch, many experts declare.

A mid-sized California-based nonbank has been toying with the idea of selling a 20% stake in itself to outside investors, according to industry officials close to the situation. “They were looking for a capital infusion, even though they didn’t really need the money,” said one source.

While a loan broker or loan officer is prohibited from “steering” a consumer to a lender offering less favorable terms in order to increase the broker’s or loan officer’s compensation, the loan broker or loan officer is not prohibited from “steering” a consumer to the same type of lender if the lender is offering more favorable terms! (12 CFR §226.36(e))

Avenue Capital of New York, a hedge fund which has almost $14 billion in assets under management, is supposedly sniffing around the jumbo conduit space. One source told us that Jay Lown, a former UBS executive, is involved. From March 2008 to October 2009 Lown served as an outside mortgage banking consultant to the Office of Thrift Supervision…

Stop me if you’ve read one of these types of stories: So-and-so has teamed up with Brand X and plans to form a jumbo conduit. I’ve written a half-dozen of these myself over the past six months. I write them, and then nothing happens. And why does nothing happen?