I am a mortgage broker, an honest mortage broker. This bill is not aimed to protect the consumer and will not do so. If you read what this bill does, it's purpose is to eliminate the mortgage broker, which it will do by causing insurance and bonds to be unattainable, and make the BANKS to only place someone can get a loan. I will be out of a job along with 14,000 other mortgage brokers in the State. For those of you that want a mortgage and don't want to go to or can't qualify with your local Wells Fargo or Washington Mutual, good luck. This will destroy Oregon's economy.
(Posted on June 6, 2007, 10:03 am Michael)
This Bill is not what it seems. This bill WILL put mortgage brokers out of business. I have personally been to the capitol voicing my concern to the House of Representatives face to face. Mortgage brokers do not have a good lobbyist working for them, most dont even know about this. Bill 965 is dangerous.
(Posted on June 2, 2007, 2:25 pm Jamie)
As a former senior loan officer, here are the Top 10 things that mortgage lenders don't want borrowers to know:
1. Not knowing which mortgage fees the borrower can -- and cannot -- negotiate. Or how the lender actually makes money on you. Without this understanding, a smooth operator could bilk you out of thousands of extra dollars . . . in mere seconds, since you don't actually write a check for these costs.
2. Choosing and trusting the first loan officer the borrower interviews.
3. Using an interest-only or "payment option" adjustable-rate loan primarily to qualify for a more expensive house than you could normally afford.
4. Thinking the interest rate is always the main thing. Do comparison shopping not just on the interest rate but on all of the loan costs.
5. Not comparing the final fees listed on the closing documents to the up-front estimates to avoid the lender packing the loan with added-on fees without the borrower's knowledge. A deceitful closing agent may also use various tactics to distract you from the inflated figures in the ream of papers you'll need to sign so you won't even notice.
6. Not knowing if the mortgage has a pre-payment penalty - until it's too late. Else you could find yourself in a Catch-22: You may need to refinance the mortgage so you can afford the monthly payment, but you may not be able to afford the prepayment penalty to allow you to refinance!
7. Thinking that renting is always just throwing money away. At least in the short run, it can cost thousands less to rent.
8. The borrower does not know if he or she is paying a back-end yield spread or Service Release Premium. These are fees paid to brokers and loan officers (the "kickback") for upselling the interest rate to borrowers.
9. Paying for mortgage life insurance, credit insurance or other expensive lender add-ons to increase the amount of kickbacks the lender can receive from various vendors.
10. Paying hundreds of dollars to have a company set up a biweekly mortgage payment plan, something the borrower can generally do for herself or himself -- for free.
From Kickback: Confessions of a Mortgage Salesman, one of the best-selling books on mortgages on Amazon.com.
