Mortgage M&A, Please Don’t Drive Without an Advisor Onboard

With FHA lending remaining healthy (still) and the outlook for the sector looking promising (despite recent premium hikes) it’s safe to say that the “government eagle” is more valuable than ever before. So, if a lender is looking to buy another funder it would make sense to double-check the acquisition target’s government eagle status. Correct? Mortgage advisor Joe Garrett writes: “When advising on bank acquisitions of mortgage companies, one of the many things we do is work on a very lengthy checklist. A bank in the northeast did an acquisition without a checklist, and we got called in only after the deal closed and the problems surfaced. The mortgage company somehow missed the fact that the bank was not HUD approved for FHA loans.” Moral of story: don’t do a deal without an advisor…