THIS JUST IN: A West Coast-based nonbank plans to make a big splash in the wholesale market and is busy hiring account executives. At last check the firm had almost 15 AEs signed on with half of them coming from (you guessed it) Bank of America.
Also in Monday's NMN a ranking of the nation's top five mortgage lenders in the fourth quarter and why one megabank is seeing declining volumes while everyone else is raking in the applications. But will it last?
The newspaper also will have figures on how many nonbank LOs are left in the industry. Come Monday, bank LOs must begin registering...
Meanwhile, one loan broker I know who works the New York, New Jersey and Florida markets says over the past few weeks he has seen many wholesale AEs changing ships and moving around. I asked him whether loan brokers in New Jersey are well served by table funders these days. His answer: "I have loads of wholesalers"...
And yes, it appears the Federal Reserve will be sued over its loan officer compensation rule. We understand the plaintiffs are lining up wholesalers because in the words of one participant: "They're wholesalers. They realize without brokers, they won't be able to compete against the big banks"...
THE VERY BIG PICTURE: OK, so you're a mortgage banker who happens to vote Republican because you believe that the government is too big, has its hand in too many businesses, and is taxing and regulating the hell out of American businesses, mortgage businesses in particular. But you also know that without federal backing, the residential origination business is toast. As one trade group official once told me (and I'm paraphrasing here): Many of our members are Republicans who don't like government involved in their business, but they realize without the government (backing) there wouldn't be a business. He's talking about Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHA. And therein lies the irony of being a member of the GOP and being a loan professional: you dislike government meddling in how you make a living, but without Uncle Sam's involvement you wouldn't have a job. This past week several prominent Republicans took shots at Uncle's involvement in mortgages. Kentucky Tea Party Sen. Rand Paul introduced legislative language to kill HUD (and FHA) outright. Rep. Darrell Issa announced a bill to kill HAMP and Rep. Randy Neugebauer of Texas made a speech decrying the government's entrenched rule in housing/mortgages, calling for the Feds to get totally out of the business. OK. Let's say we hit the "reset button" and Fannie, Freddie and FHA all disappeared tomorrow, leaving the entire residential sector in the hands of depositories, nonbanks and whatever other players might be out there. Ask yourself this: What would the loan products look like? FRMs or ARMs? What would the interest rate and terms be? And would housing values fall by, say 50%? Would you have a job? (Heck, would I have a job?) Who knows? Maybe it would all work out somehow.
There's been some chatter in Washington that FHA chief David Stevens may be a candidate for the Federal Housing Finance Agency job. NMN broke the story on its website on Friday...
LORD HAVE MERCY: Since 2008, nearly 200 religious facilities (including churches) have been foreclosed on by mortgage lenders and banks, up from eight during the previous two years, according to figures compiled by the CoStar Group. Obviously, Satan could be behind this. Him or 9%-plus unemployment which has forced many good Americans and church-goers from their jobs. No income means no donations on Sunday morning...
MORTGAGE PEOPLE: The chief executive of the privately held Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems has left the building. R.K. Arnold "retired" on Jan. 22. If you don't know what MERS is and how it relates to the robo-signing mess, then that can only mean you mistakenly arrived at this website from TMZ.com.
PUBLISHING NEWS: The parent company of The Credit Union Times has filed for bankruptcy. The market leader in the CU space is SourceMedia's Credit Union Journal. CUJ's coverage is led by Washington bureau chief Ed Roberts, a colleague of mine.
OTHER COLUMNS: The new edition of Jim Israel's "Mr. Gripes" column is out. Jim is a former NMN ad salesman who sold advertisements to mortgage firms operating in the (shall we say) the nonprime space. That's reason enough to gripe.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "Now people see black swans behind every rock. The fact is loans are up, financial conditions are terrific, companies are growing again...we think there's a lot of cash. You're talking about trillions on balance sheets earning zero. Eventually people are going to say, 'Zero isn't an adequate return, I want to do something different than that.'" - JPMorgan Chase CEO James Dimon.
DATA STUFF: A ranking of the nation's top 100 servicers can be found in the Quarterly Data Report, an Excel spreadsheet and database product offered by NMN. The QDR also ranks certain firms by their cost to service.
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