The Mortgage Guy Blog

The details are rather murky. The State of Connecticut has set aside $50 million to aid subprime borrowers having difficulty making their mortgage payments.

Rell said the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority will create the $50 million CT Families fund to refinance subprime loans for those who qualify. The money comes from previously issued bonds.

Subprime loans are those given to borrowers who are considered a higher credit risk than people with perfect or near-perfect credit scores. During the recent real estate boom, many of these subprime borrowers were given mortgages with low introductory interest rates for the first two years that reset to higher rates in later years. They often were offered these loans with assurances that they could be refinanced because the home’s value would rise.

A large number of people are defaulting on these loans because housing prices have declined, pushing some home values below the outstanding mortgage.

I find several things disturbing with the above paragraph. First there is the phrase “for those who qualify“. If these people could qualify for another loan, there would be no need to set up this fund. The qualification details are still in the works and have not been released.

However, in order to help these people, people who arguably shouldn’t have been given loans in the first place, Connecticut Housing Finance Authority underwriting guidelines will need to be liberalized. They will need to be liberalized to an extent that is even more liberal than the mortgage loans that put these home owners in jeopardy to begin with.

Not even subprime lenders would grant loans to people whose collateral is insufficient to cover the full amount of the loans. Yet this press release will have you believe that is what CHFA is planning on doing.

So lets take a well performing group of loans (traditional CHFA loans) and mix in $50 million in mortgages that are more liberally underwritten than the loans that are causing the real estate and mortgage meltdown in the first place. This is exactly what happens when those in government who are clueless about an industry, come in to fix an ill perceived problem.

I also resent the demonization of mortgage originators which is accomplished through the sentence “They often were offered these loans with assurances that they could be refinanced because the home’s value would rise.”

I’ve been in this business since 1991. I have seen shady dealings in this industry some serious and some not so. However, I have never seen future real estate value guarantees made by any savvy originator. That is not the purview of an originator.

Real Estate values, past present and future, are in the realm of the Real Estate Agent. If future value guarantees are being made, I would think it is the Real Estate Agent making them and not the originator.

Even if mortgage people did make representations to the like, it would have the same weight as your plummer telling you that you should have that mole looked at before it turns cancerous. Thanks for the concern, but I get my medical advice from medical professionals.

To support my statement that government really doesn’t understand this problem and thus are ill equipped to deal with it, lets examine the last sentence in the block quote above.

A large number of people are defaulting on these loans because housing prices have declined, pushing some home values below the outstanding mortgage.

Historically, real estate values have risen and declined without any effect on a home owner’s ability to repay their mortgage. The underlying real estate value has nothing to do with a home owner’s capacity to repay a loan. Repayment capacity is based solely on the cash flow attributes of the home owner not the value of the real estate.

The value of the real estate can effect the home owner’s ability to refinance. This is especially true when the value of the home declines to a lower level than the amount of the mortgage, which is the case for many home owners nationally.

The large number of mortgage defaults are a result of borrowers not having to prove their capacity to repay the loans (no income, no ratio and no doc loans) and the fact that many of these loans are adjusting their rates and payments upward. Again, declining real estate values have little to do with the mechanics of home owners defaulting.

As for these loans adjusting upwards, there is little excuse for the home owner not to know it was a realistic possibility. Before, during and after a mortgage transaction, the borrower is provided a “Truth In Lending” disclosure which clearly illustrates the possible stream of future payments (note item 11 on the example disclosre “Your payment schedule will be…). In other words, borrowers had the possibility of higher payments disclosed to them several times prior to closing their loan.

The subprime debacle is in essence a microcosm of what is wrong with our society today.

• There is no personal responsibility for one’s actions, someone else is always to blame
• Government is the panacea for all of society’s ills
• The belief that personal responsibility and intelligence can be legislated

While well intentioned and being wonderful pubic relation releases for politicians, initiatives such as this one being undertaken by Connecticut, miss the mark in solving the problems at hand. Sometimes, many times, government cannot fix problems in question. When the government tries to, they often make the problems worse.

This may be one of those times as it can be argued that by bailing out home owners who got themselves in trouble with liberal mortgage loans by giving them yet another liberal mortgage loan is basically institutionalizing the subprime practices that are being blamed for the meltdown in the first place.

As the saying goes, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. Here are the details on the Connecticut subprime mortgage bailout initiative.

Tags: Finance & Economy, Mortgages, Real Estate by The Mortgage Guy
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The Consumer Confidence Index fell dramatically from an October reading of 80.6 to 64. I believe this is what I have dreaded for months now and that is the mortgage and housing meltdown of 2007 is spreading to the rest of the economy.

The 64 reading was the lowest point for the monthly survey since it hit 61.5 in September 2005, a month when energy prices soared, reflecting the shutdown of Gulf Coast refineries after Katrina struck.

I believe this is only the start of what will be a long and painful negative trend. Read on…

“We have a perfect storm of negative factors affecting the consumer right now,” said David Jones, chief economist at DMJ Advisors, a Denver consulting firm. “We have higher energy prices, declining home prices and a crisis-related tightening of credit.”

Add to this a U.S. dollar that weakens on a daily basis and the perfect storm becomes the perfect hurricane.

Here is Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s take on the economy…

Mr. Bernanke said the U.S. economy would grow more slowly in the months ahead as it struggles under the weight of a growing list of challenges - slumping house prices, a credit crunch, a falling U.S. dollar and higher energy costs.

But he believes by spring 2008, we will have bottomed out and things will begin to get better. I couldn’t disagree more and here is one reason why.

Ian Shepherdson of High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, N.Y., said the Fed is underestimating the fallout from the collapse of the housing market.

“Things will be rather worse than this,” Mr. Shepherdson predicted. “Until the Fed gets real and stops referring to the housing disaster as a mere ‘correction,’ they will be behind the curve. The data will force them to ease.”

The housing and mortgage meltdowns are in relatively early stages. Yet they are already trickling over to the rest of the economy. As the meltdowns mature, they will have an even greater impact on the overall economy.

Real wages have been stagnant for years. The savings rate in the country is negative. The nation’s ATM, housing values and easy mortgage money is gone. So is the ability of the ATM to bailout home owners with tremendous credit card debt. The consumer is tapped out and there is no where for the consumer to go keep spending alive.

It’s only a matter of time before we see the consumer and service sectors of the economy (the work horses if you will) start to pull back on hiring and spending. Perhaps leading to wide scale layoffs.

Don’t think it can happen? Tell that to the one hundred eighty plus mortgage companies that have gone out of business and their 100,000 or so laid off employees. They didn’t think it could happen either.

Tags: Finance & Economy, Mortgages by The Mortgage Guy
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Savvy mortgage professionals have been offering no closing cost refinances for years. It isn’t marketed heavily because the interest rates involved are not the lowest one could seek out. So to allocate a big part of a marketing budget to spread the word that your rates are higher than everyone else’s isn’t an attractive idea. So while no cost refinances exist, it’s a pretty well kept secret.

It’s important to understand that the refinance isn’t really free. There are lender fees, appraisal fees, title fees and closing agent fees incurred just like any other mortgage transaction. The difference is all of these costs are being paid by the originator while the borrower pays nothing. The originator can be a lender or broker, either can offer this type of loan transaction.

In order for a free refinance to work, the borrower needs to meet some basic criteria. First the borrower should have a good credit score. At least good enough to meet fannie mae’s or freddie mac’s guidelines. A credit score in the mid six
hundreds usually does the trick.

The borrower will usually have to be able to document employment and income although, in the past, no cost refinances could be done on a stated income (income is stated on the application but not verified) or no ratio basis (income is not disclosed at all on the applicaiton). Additionally, the size of the refinanced loan has to be large enough to cover the fixed and variable costs paid by the originator.

The biggest consideration in any refinance is the length of time it takes to recover the closing costs. This is a non issue with the no closing cost refinance. If you lower your rate by just a quarter percent and it cost you nothing to do so, you don’t have a break even point. The benefits of the transaction are immediate. This aspect of the free refinance makes it both unique and a no brainer.

Who Benefits From The No Closing Costs Refinance?

• All homeowners with rates .25% above the current market rate
• All homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages that want the security of a fixed rate.
• All homeowners with second mortgages.
• All homeowners with a fixed term mortgage that would like to switch to a different term.
  (ie. 30 year to 15 year etc.)

How To Be Sure It’s a No Closing Cost Refinance Mortgage

It’s important to know the difference between a no closing cost refinance mortgage and a no points refinance mortgage. With a no points mortgage, you will still pay all of the other closing costs associated with the refinance. With a no points loan, the only costs waived are the points (origination or discount) or the origination fee. With a no closing costs refinance, none of these fees are paid by the borrower.

One way to tell if your mortgage company is providing you with a true no closing costs loan is to examine the Good Faith Estimate and the Truth in Lending disclosures. These disclosures are required to be sent to you within three business days of the mortgage company receiving your application.

If you are truly getting a no closing costs refinance, your Truth In Lending disclosure will have an APR (Annual Percentage Rate) that is the same as the interest rate being offered. When APR and Interest Rate are the same, that reflects there are no up front costs in obtaining the loan.

The Good Faith Estimate will list the usual closing costs but all of them will be paid by the originator and designated as such. There should be absolutely no costs payable by the borrower.

Another tip is to look at the loan amount on the disclosure forms. The loan amount should be within a thousand dollars or so of the original loan amount being refinanced. Having a big difference between existing loan balance and the new loan amount should raise a red flag. If additional cash wasn’t requested by the borrower, the amount over the existing loan amount may represent fees not disclosed by the lender.

Other Considerations

There are items that mortgage companies never cover in the no closing cost refinance. Generally speaking they are pre-paid items and the initial appraisal cost.

Pre-paid items are not closing costs per se. They are an outlay of items that need to be paid in order to complete the refinance transaction. Typically pre-paid items not covered by the mortgage company are “odd days interest” and escrows for taxes and insurance.

If the borrower cannot front the monies needed for these items, the new loan amount can be increased to cover the layout. If a loan being paid off currently has an escrow account, the unused monies will be reimbursed to the home owner usually within three weeks or those monies are applied to the final payoff. The most common method is a reimbursement after three weeks.

So even though some cash has to be laid out up front by the borrower, these monies are recouped after the old loan is paid off.

In order to protect the mortgage company from ordering and paying for needless appraisals, many mortgage companies will require the borrower to pay for the appraisal up front. If the borrower doesn’t complete the transaction, the appraisal fee becomes the responsibility of the applicant. When the loan closes however, the mortgage company reimburses the borrower.

How The Originating Mortgage Company Gets Paid

This brings up the subject of Yield Spread Premium or Premium (for lenders). A premium is paid to either a mortgage broker or lender for delivering a mortgage to the secondary market that is above the par rate. The par rate is the interest rate that costs an originator nothing and pays an originator nothing.

By delivering a rate higher than par, the mortgage originator is covering the borrowers costs for the transaction and anything left over represents the originator’s profit on the transaction. This is why no closing costs refinances always have rates higher than traditionally priced mortgages.

As long as the rate being delivered is lower than the borrower’s current rate, who cares? The rate reduction, no matter how small or large, was provided free, without any costs what so ever.

The free refinance mortgage can be done over and over again as the interest rate environment allows. It is a no cost way to lower housing and interest costs without risk. The no closing costs refinance should be in every frugal home owners arsenal of money saving techniques.

Tags: Mortgages, Tips & Tricks by The Mortgage Guy
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Just when the United States is faced with foreclosure epidemic, the very products used in the past to help people in foreclosure have disappeared.

My company was heavily involved in the foreclosure niche. We used to be able to refinance certain borrowers who faced foreclosure. In essence giving them a second or third chance to right their situation.

Before the mortgage meltdown of the summer of 2007, we routinely provided foreclosure bailout loans with loan to values of up to seventy percent of the foreclosed home’s appraised value. With Wall Street’s refusal to buy subprime mortgage paper, these products no longer exist.

The only products that are available to bail people out of foreclosure are private money lenders. The vast majority of private money lenders never lend up to seventy percent of the appraised value. This leaves a tremendous market void for a huge and rapidly growing number of distressed home owners.

How big a void? Let’s take a look at some Connecticut housing statistics highlighted in a Newsday article.

California-based RealtyTrac said the number of foreclosures increased 547 percent in the New Haven-Milford area, 522 percent in the Bridgeport-Norwalk-Stamford region and 446 percent in the Hartford area in the first half of this year, compared with the same period in 2006.

The absence of institutional foreclosure bailout money leaves us only with private money lenders. Private money lenders rarely lend in excess of sixty five percent of the appraised value of a foreclosed home. In many instances, they prefer to stay at around sixty percent of appraised value.

Add to this a real estate market that is experiencing historic declines in value, and you have virtually no market for the foreclosure bailout loan. Even if a private lender were interested in bailing out a home owner, the likelihood of the loan closing is greatly diminished by these real estate price declines.

It’s a double whammy. The industry, for all intents and purposes, has eliminated the foreclosure bailout loan and the avenues left to fill that void are impacted by the precipitous real estate value declines.

It’s obvious that this scenario negatively impacts those currently in foreclosure. What isn’t so obvious is that the foreclosure environment directly and negatively impacts home owners who are paying their mortgages on time and who enjoy the highest of credit ratings.

Foreclosures impact all home owners. When a foreclosed property is re-sold at a depressed price, it affects the values of all properties. Consequently, high grade borrowers are experiencing first hand, major declines in their home’s value.

Tags: Mortgages by The Mortgage Guy
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The mortgage meltdown continues. Just when the financial markets started to settle down, we have news like this to consider. The Independent ran an article today titled Markets fear banks have $1 trillion in toxic debt.

Samir Shah at Landsbanki Securities said: “People thought most of the bad news had been priced in. It seems we’re entering a second phase of the credit squeeze. We’re going back to a place where liquidity is drying up and volatility is increasing.”

This is what we saw back in August of this year. Central Banks around the world were able to jaw bone us back into some semblance of stability. It seemed for awhile anyway that the worst was behind us.

Then Merrill Lynch and Citigroup had written down their losses on their mortgage holdings costing Stan O’Neal of Merrill and Charles Prince of Citigroup their jobs.

At Merrill, The write down was in excess of $7.9 billion and at Citigroup, the write down was an even larger $11 billion. The Merrill Lynch write down resulted in their largest quarterly loss ever.

Following the lead of these two U.S. financial giants, European investment banks are feeling the pain as well. The U.S. mortgage debacle is officially a global concern.

“Some banks have particularly weak disclosure, leading investors to fear what is beyond the veil,” Morgan Stanley’s van Steenis said.

UBS, Deutsche Bank, and Credit Suisse - Europe’s largest investment banks - all reported third-quarter earnings last week, but failed despite massive writedowns to allay fears that the worst is over, analysts say.

Now many are suspicious that not all of the bad mortgage exposure has been disclosed, leading to a lack of trust in the markets. Add this to a lack of liquidity among banks and price volatility among mortgage securities, and you have an ongoing crisis of immense magnitude.

Bill Gross, the chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management, makes the following points about this financial debacle…

US mortgage delinquencies and defaults would rise in 2008. “There are $1 trillion worth of sub-primes, Alt-As [self-certified] and basically garbage loans,” he said, adding that he expects some $250bn in defaults. “We’ve only begun to see the pain from rising mortgage payments,”

What this means to the average home owner and buyer is that mortgage money will be much more difficult to obtain. It also means we can expect foreclosures in 2008 to dwarf those of 2007. This will result in ongoing real estate price declines which are already at historic levels.

The home equity that you have today, may not be there in 2008. Billions of dollars in wealth is evaporating before our eyes. Sooner or later, this will make the average consumer in the United States feel as poor as they really are.

One can speculate that this will lead to a pull back of consumer spending, spreading the real estate recession to the rest of our economy. In my opinion, this is why the Federal Reserve Bank is lowering interest rates.

If you are a home owner, now is the time to take care of your mortgage needs. The mortgage products you need may not be there in 2008. Furthermore, the expected price declines in real estate values will further negatively impact your ability to obtain favorable home financing.

Hold on tight, we are about to hit some more severe financial turbulence.

Tags: Current Events, Finance & Economy, Mortgages by The Mortgage Guy
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Does it make sense to refinance or buy now or will you be better off waiting. The answer is it depends whether or not you are refinancing or buying a home.

If you are refinancing a home, you may be better off jumping in now. Sure there is a possibility rates will go lower if you wait. After all, the economy seems to be getting worse and the Federal Reserve is recognizing this fact and responding with rate cuts.

But while you wait for rates to go lower, home values are declining dramatically. In northern Fairfield County in Connecticut, we are seeing 10% to 15% declines in value. Value declines of this magnitude can eliminate any potential savings to be gained by waiting for lower rates.

How so? In addition to credit grade and the type of income and asset documentation available, loan to value can have a significant impact on the rate you get on your mortgage. Loan to value is the ratio of your loan amount to the appraised value of your home. The closer you get to 100% loan to value, the worse your financing terms will be.

So while waiting for lower rates, if your home’s value is declining precipitously, you can easily negate the effects of lower rates by increasing your loan to value ratio. Based on this premise and the fact that currently rates are within a point of their all time lows (conventional 30, 20 and 15 year fixed rates), now is the time to refinance. This is especially true in light of what is happening to home values.

If on the other hand, you are a home buyer, by all means take your time. As stated previously, home values are declining so the longer one waits the better deal to be had. Furthermore, there is no bottom in real estate prices anywhere on the horizon.

Foreclosures are expected to at least continue on their current record pace and some say they may accelerate. I believe they will accelerate before the market gets any sound footing. I say this because there are trillions of dollars in adjustable rate mortgages out there getting ready to adjust upwards. This will make homes more unaffordable for people already struggling with their payments.

Many of these people bought their homes with very little or no down payments. These people won’t be able to refinance because the amounts they owe will be greater than value of the home due to severe price declines. They will need to tough it out or be foreclosed upon which will put even more downward pressure on home values.

It was also stated earlier that rates are declining. As the economy slows, which it will due the strain the housing market is putting on it, rates should continue to decline. This means not only will buyers get better prices by waiting but they should also have very good rates available to them when they seek purchase financing.

So if you are a homeowner and are considering refinancing, do it now. If you are considering buying a home, there is no sense of urgency to jump in from a price and interest rate perspective. For the time being, the longer you wait the better it gets.

If you are a homeowner looking to trade up or down, the current environment applies to you on both the sell side and the buy side. Meaning that while you will get less for your current home, you can expect to pay less for your next home. For people in this situation, there really is no need to rush or to wait.

Tags: Mortgages, Tips & Tricks by The Mortgage Guy
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U.S. Representative Barney Frank (D-Mass) is proposing legislation that will decimate the mortgage industry. If he is successful, it will no doubt negatively impact millions of Americans who own homes and who plan on buying homes. The public will see their mortgage choices cut in half, if not more, and has the potential of exacerbating the current mortgage and real estate crisis. Consider the excerpt from an October 29th bizjournals article…

The bill, introduced by House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, would require all mortgage originators to be licensed. It also would require lenders to determine that borrowers have a reasonable chance to repay the loan and ban incentives for mortgage originators to make certain types of loans.

First let me address the obvious. Originators and mortgage companies are already required to be licensed. They are required by the states that they operate in. Requiring Federal licensing will only add another layer of red tape to an industry already plagued with it.

He then wants mortgage companies to ensure a borrowers ability to repay a given loan. Only God can do that. There is no way any money making entity would take the risk of originating loans if they can be called to the carpet for not foreseeing a borrower not being able to repay. Yet that is what Barney Frank is requiring of mortgage companies.

The incentives he wants to ban are an integral part of mortgage pricing. The incentives he speaks of is called Yield Spread Premium in the mortgage industry. Originators get paid for providing a mortgage through front end fees or points and yield spread premium. Sometimes it’s one or the other and sometimes compensation comes from a combination of both.

Yield spread premiums provide compensation to the originator in exchange for delivering a mortgage with a rate that is higher than the “par” rate on any given day. The par rate is the rate that the originator can offer without yield spread premium being paid or without cost to the originator and or borrower.

It is through yield spread premium that no point and no cost mortgages are offered. When a lending institution offers a no point loan, they aren’t doing it for free. Someone is paying and that someone is the secondary market. The consumer benefits because they are able to get a loan without having to pay points. Eliminating yield spread premium would eliminate no point and no cost mortgages. How can this benefit the consumer?

The American Bankers Association also is concerned the bill would increase the regulatory burden for banks and restrict their “ability to provide products and services — all of which would increase costs and decrease choices for consumers,” said Floyd Stoner, the association’s executive director of congressional relations and public policy.

The National Association of Mortgage Brokers contended consumers would be hurt by the legislation’s elimination of the yield spread premium, a rebate paid to brokers if borrowers accept a higher interest rate in return for lower fees on the loan.

It is interesting to note that none of the measures in Frank’s legislation would have headed off the current mortgage crisis. However it is plain for everyone to see that the current crisis sets a nice stage for his grand standing.

Not only would his legislation not prevent the crisis, it will make the current crisis more painful and has the potential of thrusting this country into a 1930’s style depression by drying up liquidity in the mortgage market. This will lead to fewer homes being sold and more homes going into foreclosure. All of which will continue the steep downward spiral of housing prices.

Let’s remember one thing about politicians. Their number one goal is not help anyone in particular, but to get re-elected. Many are re-elected on ideas that sound good but are harmful in reality. This is one of those instances.

Tags: Mortgages by The Mortgage Guy
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So you’ve finally decided it’s time to make an offer on that house or refinance the one you own. You heard the internet is a great place to shop for a mortgage. So you log on and pull up Google, Yahoo or MSN and you type in “mortgage”.

The first thing you notice on Google is that there are one hundred and forty seven million results for the term mortgage. So you try to narrow it down some by entering “mortgage Connecticut” (or whatever state you live in). Great now you have narrowed it down to 2.147 million results (as of 2005, Connecticut had a population of 3.5 million people). So you just forge ahead and examine the first 30 or so results.

Out of the first thirty results, only one link is to a mortgage company. The other twenty nine links are to mortgage portals that shoot your application to multilple lenders and informational sites like freddiemac and wikipedia. Over to the right you have paid listings. Out of the eight, five are mortgage portals.

So you have the choice of choosing the one lender listed in my search, it was Countrywide or you can try one of the mortgage portals. Of course you can always search more but internet mortgage shopping was supposed to be easy. And why not use a portal? What’s wrong with filling out one application online and have three or four lenders compete for your business?

These mortgage portal sites are in essence mortgage referral websites. The sites don’t provide the loan. The company or companies they forward your mortgage application to provides the loan. To make it worse, you don’t even know who they are going to refer you to. Which is the equivalent of opening the yellow pages and covering your eyes and pointing to the page to pick a company to call.

To me, that is not how I want to shop for anything, including a mortgage. When I shop for a car, I go to dealerships. When I buy clothes, I go to the mall or pull up a website like Landsend.com. If I’m buying groceries, I go to the supermarket. I don’t go to a website and seek out a shopping service. I go straight to the source. That is how shopping for a mortgage on the internet should be too.

I’m not knocking mortgage portals or informational websites. Sites like freddiemac’s and some of the better portals provide a ton of information resources. If you are really into convenience and so much so you are willing to give up control of the shopping experience, then a mortgage referral website is a great place to go.

I don’t know about you but when I shop, I want to deal directly with the entity that is actually providing the product or service I am seeking. When shopping for a mortgage on the internet, be aware of who you are dealing with. Is the website a mortgage referral site or is it the actual website of the mortgage company? Knowing the difference can save you a lot of time and aggravation.

Tags: Mortgages, Tips & Tricks by The Mortgage Guy
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Last month, we were at 167 imploded* lenders. In just a month we add ten more to the list. How many will it be by year end and what impact will that have on the industry and the consumer?

“Imploded” Lenders:
177. Exchange Financial
176. FirstBank Mortgage
175. Bank of America (Wholesale Unit)
174. Diablo Funding Group Inc.
173. Honor State Bank
172. Spectrum Financial Group
171. National City - Home Equity, Correspondent
170. Priority Funding Mortgage Bankers
169. BrooksAmerica Mortgage Corp.
168. Valley Vista Mortgage
167. New State Mortgage Company
166. Summit Mortgage Company
165. WMC
164. Paragon Home Lending
163. First Mariner Wholesale
162. The Lending Connection
161. Foxtons, Inc.
160. SCME Mortage Bankers (Wholesale)
159. Aapex Mortgage (Apex Financial Group)
158. Wells Fargo (various Correspondent and Non-prime divisions)
157. Nationstar Mortgage
156. Decision One (HSBC)
155. Impac Lending Group (Wholesale)
154. E-Trade Wholesale Lending
153. Long Beach (WaMu Warehouse/Correspondent)
152. Expanded Mortgage Credit Wholesale
151. The Mortgage Store Financial
150. C & G Financial
149. CFIC Home Mortgage
148. BrokerSource (BSM Financial - Wholesale)
147. All Fund Mortgage
146. LownHome Financial
145. Sea Breeze Financial Services
144. Castle Point Mortgage
143. Premium Funding Corp
142. Group One Lending
141. Allstate Home Loans / Allstate Funding
140. Home Loan Specialists (HLS)
139. Transnational Finance Wholesale
138. CIT Home Lending
137. Capital Six Funding
136. Mortgage Investors Group (MIG) - Wholesale
135. Amstar Mortgage Corp
134. Quality Home Loans
133. BNC Mortgage (Lehman)
132. Accredited Home Lenders, Home Funds Direct
131. First National Bank of Arizona (FNBA) Wholesale, Correspondent
130. Chevy Chase Bank Correspondent
129. GreenPoint Mortgage - Capital One Wholesale
128. NovaStar (Wholesale), Homeview Lending
127. Quick Loan Funding
126. Calusa Investments
125. Mercantile Mortgage
124. First Magnus
123. First Indiana Wholesale
122. GEM Loans / Pacific American Mortgage (PAMCO)
121. Kirkwood Financial Corporation
120. Lexington Lending
119. Express Capital Lending
118. Deutsche Bank Correspondent Lending Group (CLG)
117. MLSG
116. Trump Mortgage
115. HomeBanc Mortgage Corporation
114. Mylor Financial
113. Aegis
112. Alternative Financing Corp (AFC) Wholesale
111. Winstar Mortgage
110. American Home Mortgage / American Brokers Conduit
109. Optima Funding
108. Equity Funding Group
107. Sunset Mortgage
106. Fieldstone Mortgage Company
105. Nations Home Lending
104. Entrust Mortgage
103. Alera Financial (Wholesale)
102. Flick Mortgage/Mortgage Simple
101. Dollar Mortgage Corporation
100. Alliance Bancorp
99. Choice Capital Funding
98. Premier Mortgage Funding
97. Stone Creek Funding
96. FlexPoint Funding (Wholesale & Retail)
95. Starpointe Mortgage
94. Unlimited Loan Resources (ULR)
93. Freestand Financial
92. Steward Financial
91. Bridge Capital Corporation
90. Altivus Financial
89. ACT Mortgage
88. Alliance Mortgage Banking Corp (AMBC)
87. Concord Mortgage Wholesale
86. Heartwell Mortgage
85. Oak Street Mortgage
84. The Mortgage Warehouse
83. First Street Financial
82. Right-Away Mortgage
81. Heritage Plaza Mortgage
80. Horizon Bank Wholesale Lending Group
79. Lancaster Mortgage Bank (LMB)
78. Bryco (Wholesale)
77. No Red Tape Mortgage
76. The Lending Group (TLG)
75. Pro 30 Funding
74. NetBank Funding, Market Street Mortgage
73. Columbia Home Loans, LLC
72. Mortgage Tree Lending
71. Homeland Capital Group
70. Nation One Mortgage
69. Dana Capital Group
68. Millenium Funding Group
67. MILA
66. Home Equity of America
65. Opteum (Wholesale, Conduit)
64. Innovative Mortgage Capital
63. Home Capital, Inc.
62. Home 123 Mortgage
61. Homefield Financial
60. First Horizon Subprime, Equity Lending
59. Platinum Capital Group (Wholesale)
58. First Source Funding Group (FSFG)
57. Alterna Mortgage
56. Solutions Funding
55. People’s Mortgage
54. LowerMyPayment.com
53. Zone Funding
52. First Consolidated (Subprime Wholesale)
51. EquiFirst
50. SouthStar Funding
49. Warehouse USA
48. H&R Block Mortgage
47. Madison Equity Loans
46. HSBC Mortgage Services (correspondent div.)
45. Sunset Direct Lending
44. Kellner Mortgage Investments
43. LoanCity
42. CoreStar Financial Group
41. Ameriquest, ACC Wholesale
40. Investaid Corp.
39. People’s Choice Financial Corp.
38. Master Financial
37. Maribella Mortgage
36. FMF Capital LLC
35. New Century Financial Corp.
34. Wachovia Mortgage (Correspondent div.)
33. Ameritrust Mortgage Company (Subprime Wholesale)
32. Trojan Lending (Wholesale)
31. Fremont General Corporation
30. DomesticBank (Wholesale Lending Division)
29. Ivanhoe Mortgage/Central Pacific Mortgage
28. Eagle First Mortgage
27. Coastal Capital
26. Silver State Mortgage
25. ResMAE Mortgage Corporation
24. ECC Capital/Encore Credit
23. Lender’s Direct Capital Corporation (wholesale division)
22. Concorde Acceptance
21. DeepGreen Financial
20. Millenium Bankshares (Mortgage Subsidiaries)
19. Summit Mortgage
18. Mandalay Mortgage
17. Rose Mortgage
16. EquiBanc
15. FundingAmerica
14. Popular Financial Holdings
13. Clear Choice Financial/Bay Capital
12. Origen Wholesale Lending
11. SecuredFunding
10. Preferred Advantage
9. MLN
8. Sovereign Bancorp (Wholesale Ops)
7. Harbourton Mortgage Investment Corporation
6. OwnIt Mortgage
5. Sebring Capital Partners
4. Axis Mortgage & Investments
3. Meritage Mortgage
2. Acoustic Home Loans
1. Merit Financial

List courtesy of Lender Implode dot com.

Please note*

“Imploded” lenders: The “imploded” status is somewhat subjective and does not necessarily mean operations are ceased permanently: it can mean bankruptcy filing, temporary but open-ended halting of major operations, or a “firesale” acquisition. The Companies include all types (prime, subprime, or a mix of both; retail or wholesale; subsidiaries and entire companies). Note: Companies listed here may still be operating in some capacity; check with them before making assumptions.

Tags: Mortgages by The Mortgage Guy
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