THE WORD ON LOAN BROKERS: "A lot of firms have no interest in our broker research," said David Olson who runs Access Research of Columbia, Md. Earlier in the year Access was called Wholesale Access and you can pretty much figure out why he removed the word 'Wholesale' from the firm's name. In an interview with National Mortgage News Mr. Olson said the only large bank wholesaler that still believes in brokers is Wells Fargo. "We've been having a debate with Wells," he said. "They think the channel is coming back." When it comes to mortgage acumen, Wells and its mortgage chief Mark Oman are well regarded. Over the years, Mr. Oman's reputation in the industry has grown steadily. Some industry veterans refer to him as the "anti-Angelo" because he was everything the former Countrywide chief was not: quiet and out of the public eye. And (of course) Wells is still standing whereas Countrywide had a choice to make: sell to Bank of America or go bankrupt. As for Mr. Olson, Access is now plying its expertise in other mortgage areas including compliance and servicing. Discussing all the coming regulations that are being heaped on loan brokers he made this poignant observation: "Maybe someone in the federal government will realize that what they've been doing is very anti-small business," he said. If you care to comment see the end of the column or shoot an email to:
As I've noted in this column before, loan brokers deserve some of the blame for the mortgage debacle but hardly the lion's share. Brokers are just facilitators. They don't underwrite or create the loan menus. It was up to the wholesalers and Wall Street to police them through our (former) laissez-faire system of regulation. Interestingly, FHA chief David Stevens recently declared that wholesalers should police brokers, making bankers responsible for anything sourced through third-party firms. Stevens also eliminated the whole concept of brokers even registering with HUD to get approval...
Readers of the National Mortgage News website, by now, have viewed our story on how the broker channel hit a new market share low of just 12.9% in the third quarter. Two years ago the broker market share was at 28.2%. (This is table funding, not a correspondent origination which entails a larger fish buying an already funded mortgage from another institution.) All this leads to the big question: are brokers toast? Wells doesn't think so and there are a handful of up and coming wholesalers that still like the channel, chief among them Provident Funding, MetLife Home Loans, Stearns Lending and more. In the brand new third quarter edition of the Quarterly Data Report we rank the top 38 wholesalers in the third quarter. To see the QDR send an email to:
A new report by Barclays predicts that come February the White House is unlikely to make any sweeping changes to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which continue to operate under conservatorships. As we've noted before, the federal government is unlikely to give the two an "explicit" guarantee because that would mean FanFred's $5.2 trillion in obligations would wind up on the federal budget. (I'm so glad I took an accounting class back in high school.) Barclays notes that "A good bank/bad bank structure for the GSEs makes sense, but not in February 2010. Indeed, the high quality of new business that FNM/FRE are underwriting suggests that the administration might have the flexibility to attempt such a restructuring several years down the road." The bank points out that "The true question that needs to be addressed is the appropriate extent of government involvement in US housing finance." Indeed...
Christmas and all those other gift giving holidays are right around the corner. What's the best present to give? Answer: a book. Why a book? Answer: Because if you're a guy like me, you're too retarded to wrap anything that isn't a rectangle. Just so you know, the paperback version of 'Chain of Blame, How Wall Street Caused the Mortgage and Credit Crisis' will be out in late January with new information on the mortgage cartel, 'too big to fail,' vulture funds like PennyMac, loan modifications and more. The book is available for pre-order on Amazon. Meanwhile, in case you'd like to send me bourbon, my new work address is: 4401 Wilson Boulevard/ Suite 910/Arlington, VA, 22203. I'm just kidding about the bourbon. But that is the new address of the Washington area office of National Mortgage News and our affiliates.
WASHINGTON NEWS: Late Friday the House passed its massive regulatory reform bill that, among other things, creates a new consumer protection agency with authority to set mortgage lending standards for all residential originators. Mortgage bankers might consider this development bad news but they did get one minor victory: efforts to revive cramdowns was killed. Now the measure moves to the Senate which moves like molasses. The full story, written by NMN's Brian Collins, is on our website at:
MORTGAGE PEOPLE: Former Treasury official Neel Kashkari, who helped create the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program and was its first director, will join Pacific Investment Management Co., commonly known as PIMCO. Mr. Kashkari, handpicked in the Fall of 2008 by Treasury chief Henry Paulson to run TARP, will serve as a managing director and head of new investment initiatives at PIMCO, beginning on Monday.
SPEAKING OPPORTUNITY: SourceMedia, the folks that own NMN, American Banker, Credit Union Journal and other publications is looking for topics and speakers for its Fourth annual mortgage servicing conference in Dallas. We already have some 'topics and talkers' but we're looking for more. For more information contact:
DATA NOTICE #1: Planning for next year and need soup-to-nuts statistics on the nation's top residential (and commercial) lenders and servicers? The new Mortgagestats.com data product might be what you're looking for. The user-friendly M-Stats is web-based and incorporates both the Quarterly Data Report and our annual Mortgage Industry Directory. Among other things, it has annual rankings on the top 400 lenders and servicers, including breakdowns on retail, wholesale, and correspondent - and news archives. There's contact info too - and plenty of data on servicing. And here's the best part: you get quarterly updates. To see a sample send an email to:
DATA NOTICE #2: Even though we offer MortgageStats.com you can still subscribe to the Quarterly Data Report and Alternative Products QDR, spreadsheet products that provide readers with quarterly rankings on the nation's top lenders and servicers. The new 3Q edition of both is now available. For more info shoot an email to:
THE LAST WORD: The Department of Housing and Urban Development plans to lift the 1% cap on origination fees for Federal Housing Administration-insured loans. Look for an official announcement shortly.
