Comments on: The Big Squeeze – Countrywide Limits Broker Compensation

By: Ann

Ann — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:35:49 +0000

Ole Mtg Banker..they are also the ones with the McMansions up for sale and the Mercedes sold to CarMax…

It takes a true professional who has lived through the ups and downs of doing business to survive…

By: Ole Mtg. Banker

Ole Mtg. Banker — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:08:08 +0000

Damn….I owned and operated a Mortgage Company for 19 years. We were mortgage bankers – not brokers. We never averaged 4% per year “ever”. I still managed to retired at 45….Now I know how all those high school drop-outs were driving around in their new Mercedes…Oh Well…

By: Rob Dawg

Rob Dawg — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:55:15 +0000

4% is 400 points. $% is obscene, 4 points is innocuous.

By: Brent

Brent — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:05:00 +0000

xxx

By: JD

JD — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:11:51 +0000

Basically borrower's with low loan amounts will be hurt by having less available options as brokers will cut back on the lower loan amounts. It's the big banks' way of slowly but surely cutting out the competition in low loan amount markets. Here's a good question….why aren't they limited what they can make when they sell their pools if they limit the originator? The bank can be just as predatory as the originator. This ultimately means CW and other large banks who follow will jack rates higher in their retail divisions for low loan amount (sub150k) borrowers, following the same 4% rule, pearing to make less but when their secondary market trades come through it all goes in the banks pocket. Way to help house america CW.

By: mikew

mikew — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:08:22 +0000

This is just fine with me. It still allows us to make a very good income. There really is no need to charge a customer 4 points. Really only the scandrals charged their customers that much.

All of these pricing policies while they appear to only effect wholesale certainly effect retail. Retail has to compete with us. So if we have to disclose in dollar terms how much we are making and we can only make so much than retail will have to compete with us.

Brokers still have the advantage becuase of our ability to run a much leaner cost efficient organization. I love it!

By: derrick wynn

derrick wynn — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:09:31 +0000

Countrywide charged it own customers in retail (full spectrum) a avg of 8pts per loan. They screwed ther own customers.

By: morganb

morganb — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:40:03 +0000

Whatever the state and/or federal cap maxed out at which varies state to
state, but usually around 6%.

By: morganb

morganb — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:39:02 +0000

I agree with Tony & Austin. 4 points is absurd. Our company averaged over
the course of 3 years well under two points per loan. What I find
interesting is that the banks (esp. Countrywide, trying to clean up their
act for the BofA merger) are taking more aggressive actions than the
states/federal regs which is a complete shift in approach to wholesale.

By: Austin Broker

Austin Broker — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:35:24 +0000

Tony,
I agree with you, if you are a competitive broker in this field, you will never get away with this unless you embed fees. This is a practice I do not believe in.