Comments on: ALT A is Broken? Really?

By: Anthony M. Freed

Anthony M. Freed — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:22:52 +0000

Thanks for the thoughts all..

And a bigger thanks to Morgan at BlownMortgage.com who was kind enough to open the door for me, and I owe him big time. Visit his site often.

Anthony M. Freed
YourMortgageOrYourLife.com

By: LessthanperfectLO

LessthanperfectLO — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:09:30 +0000

Yeah right! It's all the loan officers fault. You holier than thou… know it all AE's crack me up. If only it were that simple. EVERYONE was an accomplice in one form or another. Granted some much more than others but to single out loan officers alone is just total B***S***. Did the Mortgage Brokers,Lenders,Banks owners that hired the LO's not know what was happening?Did the AE's not know what was happening? Did the wholesalers not know what was happening?Did Wall Street not know what was happening?Did the Ratings Companies not know what was happening?Did the Fed not know what was happening?Did Congress not know what was happening? Puh….lease!
Are you going to tell us, WaMuGuy and Fred, that you NEVER knowingly had a transaction go through you that you knew to be fraudulant in some form or another or not in the best interest of the client? And just look the other way and pretend that you know nothing? It's very easy to point the finger at unscrupulous LO's which, yes there were many, but they did not operate in a vacuum or alone and without the assistence of everyone involved Including yourselves. Don't get me wrong I am in NO WAY defending the actions of dishonest ,Greedy and unscrupulous individuals in our Industry. But they do not reside only in the ranks of the LO's. Being so called veteran's of the industry you should be more in command of the facts and know better than to scape goat the problems of our industry on the Loan Officers. We already get enough irresponsible and simplistic explainations from the Talking Heads and MSM thank you.

By: Scott Wilson

Scott Wilson — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:59:33 +0000

Great article…let the truth be told.

By: TheWaMuGuy

TheWaMuGuy — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:37:41 +0000

Amen, brother! Although section (a) has gotten plenty of press, section (b) of your comments is the elephant in the room that NOBODY wants to talk about. It is amazing that nobody on the right or left is willing to acknowledge that it isn't big corporations who sold these folks up the river – it was their kin.
I am a veteran A-paper AE who for years worked several accounts in “the ghetto”. Not to make big money (8 bps on $40K isn't worth the trouble), but because I thought it was the right thing to do for good people with good credit but lower income, i.e. give people a 30-year fixed at 6% rather than a 2/28 at 9.9%, which is what their LOs preferred to do. Unfortunately, the LOs would charge them so many points that they exceeded the 5% guidelines for total compensation, so they would end up getting sent to New Century or some other subprime shop that didn't limit them. I saw 70% LTV full doc 750+ borrowers go subprime just because the LO could make more money that way, and I assure you that 98% of the time it was done to somebody within their own community.

By: Mr. Anonymous

Mr. Anonymous — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:51:15 +0000

If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would just spend the time to spare their ego's and give me an opportunity to show how extensive Loss Mitigation can prevent havoc and save family homes and lower delinquency and contain a spiraling downward crisis and contain it in minimal time I can show them the way, you do not need expensive attorneys who milk the desperate people in desperate times, just knowledgeable people with experience that want to make a difference in people's lives and eradicate all the negative news and replace it with positive news. You just can't put any clerk and teach them this method it won't work and has failed miserably; It won't come overnight but the gradual improvement will come fast it will manifest….all I would ask is that in the end you pat my back and say thanks. You know to get a hold me….

By: Fred

Fred — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:37:04 +0000

As a retired account executive, I can tell you two things with certainty.

(a) Under-qualified loan officers – fueled by shear greed, and aided by the lack of 'little fences' – manufactured so much of this kind of distortion of truth (fraud), that you wouldn't believe it. Many times the borrowers (many of whom were first-time home buyers in my area) were told to just “sign the forms” and that the loan officer would fill them in for them later.
(b) Almost entirely, the very minorities that were lied to regarding the truth about what type of loans they were getting, were lied to by members of their own minority. Certain cultural backgrounds tend to only do business within their own culture – so don't blame the establishment for their misfortune. I've seen several examples were unscrupulous loan officers did not tell borrowers they had to pay taxes and insurance (remember, in my area many of these buyers were new to the fundamentals of living in America), and the borrower – who was pushing it to make payments in the first place – got blown out of the water when their annual tax and insurance bills landed in their mailbox.

We're in for at least 18 more months of this folks – don't kid yourselves.