What We're Hearing

Most readers know the obvious: the nation’s top four residential lenders are banks and they have a “cartel” like hold on the origination business. In case you’re wondering who the top four are, next week National Mortgage News will release its Quarterly Data Report but here’s a preview of the top four and it’s the same four that have been dominating the business for well over a year: Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase, and CitiMortgage – all of which received sizeable TARP money from Treasury last year. Meanwhile the SAFE Act (Secure and Fair Enforcement for Mortgage Licensing Act) is coming. According to Scott Stern of the Lender’s One cooperative depositories are exempt from the pre-licensing and continuing education requirements of the legislation. Non-banks must foot the expense of these items which Mr. Sterns calls a “tax” on the non-bank industry. The question now becomes: how did the mega banks – all recipients of government aid – pull off such a lobbying coup?