Anyone want to start playing ‘Another One Bites the Dust’

It came across my desk this morning that Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Company, one of the major players in residential home mortgages has bit the dust.  Apparently FHA has barred them from doing loans for them, and that was the rock to the side of the head that brought this Goliath down.

Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp., one of the largest independent home-loan providers, closed its mortgage-lending operation Wednesday, an event that further consolidates an industry increasingly dominated by a few big banks.

The failure of the privately held Taylor Bean, based in Ocala, Fla., came a day after the Federal Housing Administration barred it from making loans insured by the government agency. Taylor Bean was the nation's 12th-largest home-mortgage lender for the first half of the year, and the third-largest originator of FHA loans in June, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade publication.

Taylor Bean said Wednesday that it wouldn't be able to complete or fund any mortgage loans in its pipeline of unfinished mortgages. Mortgage analysts said the failure of Taylor Bean could be a blow to hundreds of small banks and brokers that sold their loans to Taylor Bean and now will have to scramble to find new partners. That would lead to fewer choices for consumers.  Source: WSJ

I can only imagine the pain that is going through agents hearts today as they have to tell their buyers that their deals are shot to hell because their lender is dead.  Big companies going under like this have a huge ripple through the market, and I expect there will be a lot of tears and broken hearts out there this week as buyers try to come to terms with not having loans.

This comes after a raid on Taylor Bean’s Ocala offices on Monday by Federal agents.

"I can confirm for you that our office, the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), has executed two search warrants today in the state of Florida," said Kristine Belisle, communications director. "It's our investigation. It's our agents that have executed search warrants." Source: Ocala.com

My heart goes out to the 5000 or so people that were fired with no notice from Taylor, Bean & Whitaker as well as buyers all across the country, that are now left in Limbo with transactions scheduled to close but have no loan to do it with!