Some questions have come to mind about transparency of transactions, and the availability of information to consumers. This seems to be a thread that is common to several different, unrelated discussions and events.

Recently a post was written about Realtor.com. The discussion was whether real estate agents liked their clients having such access to the listings. Several complained that the site was not as good or as affordable as they would like. As far as preferring customers to have check the site for listings, the opinions seemed to be split.

Another post also was written recently about Realtor.com, but I am not linking to that blog post because it was for members only.

My son just bought a home. He did a good bit of research on available listings using Realtor.com. That meant that his agent provided other services, and did so quite well. Her fee was not earned looking for available properties in the MLS, although she also of course checked the MLS, but rather negotiating the contract, checking out the property, the history, representing her buyer's interests.

She really did a good job. And she is now on Active Rain, but not doing the same good job participating with blogging as she did selling my son a home. I am working to encourage that. :)

The question comes to mind for me though, Is the informed consumer better to work with?

Another post, written by William Johnson, discussed the pending legislation concerning tax incentives to purchase foreclosure properties. The issue in the post was that a seemingly unrelated proposal was tacked onto the bill. Apparently to sneak the tack on legislation through into law, a bill that might not stand on its own.

The thinking is that if the legisislation were more transparent, then our elected leaders could not work out that kind of behind doors deal. And frankly they should not be able to do so.

Recently, my office had its regular state audit. The big focus was disclosure and excessive charges for a mortgage. At issue was whether the disclosures were made timely and accurately and whether fees were increased without customer knowledge or whithout time for the customer to react.

The federal and state regulators are not going to let loan originators sneak excessive and undisclosed charges by unsuspecting borrowers. Not any more.

Another blog topic was concerning disclosure of the terms and margins for pay option ARMS. The thinking was that higher margins were sold without the customer understanding the choices. The higher the margin, the higher the YSP. Customers do not initially feel any impact of a higher margin, because of the artificially low initial minimum payment.

There have been other discussions with a similar back ground theme of openness and informed consumers.

On the mortgage side on the transaction, I get customers who know their middle score and their DTI. They know about stated income programs. They know about bank statement documentation programs. They know about rates, points, fees, LTV. Many borrowers are quite frankly very knowledgable.

Is that good for loan officers? for the industry? for competition?

Does it make the transaction more transparent, better for the consumer? better for all concerned?

I actually think that an informed consumer is good.

I know that an informed consumer is who we all are going to be working with in the future. My hope is that by blogging I will have one more way to tell that informed consumer that they can find an informed originator by calling me.

We need as an industry and as individuals to be part of informing consumers, or we risk becoming irrelevant.

Thanks, 

Richard