Loan Think

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed new regulations to force certain lenders to indemnify or reimburse the Federal Housing Administration for insurance claims paid on mortgages that are found not to meet the agency's guidelines. In addition, HUD's proposed rule would require all new and existing lenders with the ability to insure mortgages on HUD's behalf to meet stricter performance standards to gain and maintain their approval status.

Bank of America — the nation's second largest mortgage lender — has had the crap kicked out of it lately. It posted a large third quarter loss, its share price has been hammered, and bond investors are trying to collect damages because Countrywide (which the bank bought 27 months ago) allegedly did a poor job as a master servicer. Also, it has been slammed by the foreclosure scandal.

THIS JUST IN: Paul Best, head of warehouse lending at National City/PNC, is leaving the bank for another job. PNC, of course, had pulled the plug on the business with its last lines drying up a few weeks ago. (Best, who declined to comment, is under contract for a few more months.) Meanwhile, we understand that a handful of warehouse firms are staffing up.

More title insurance firms are easing up on indemnification demands from mortgage companies that are selling REO properties. Late this week First American, Old Republic, and Stewart Title all said they would not demand that REO sellers provide written assurances that everything was kosher with the paperwork.

If your "why" isn’t big enough, you will not develop the "what" you need to do to succeed; nor will you have the fortitude to bear under the "how" to overcome the obstacles that life and this business have yet to throw your way.

Recent news reports that bond investors — including the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and PIMCO — may sue Bank of America because Countrywide Financial Corp. did a bad job of servicing loans that went into ABS/MBS have been a bit misleading.

Yeah, times are tough and you get deals where you can get them, right? But, ask yourself this question—does it take any more work to get a $150,000 deal closed—than it takes to get a $450,000 deal closed?

The mortgage/housing/subprime mess has cost U.S taxpayers billions of dollars, no doubt. But was the crisis caused by incompetence, greed, fraud or some combination of all three? Former S&L regulator Bill Black (a player in the Lincoln Savings/Keating Five Scandal) points out in a recent email that, "No senior official" at a large subprime lender has been convicted for "making fraudulent loans on behalf of the lender (as opposed to secretly ripping off the lender)."

Well, it’s the end of October. The leaves are falling; the weather has begun to change. This signals an important time of the year for me….planning for what looks to be a good 2011 in the reverse mortgage business.

You remember the S&L crisis, I suppose? That's when the Reagan White House deregulated the savings and loan industry – with the blessing of all the Democrats on Capitol Hill – and allowed the not-so-little thrift industry to finance just about anything that moved. (And they did.)