Dale Stouffer

Whoever wrote this piece incorrectly blamed mortgage brokers as the sole mortgage origination responsible party for all the bad loans written. The author wrote: "When the market began to collapse in 2006, investors discovered a dirty little secret that local real estate agents and mortgage brokers had known about for a couple of years." While mortgage brokers have originated in excess of 60% of the residential loans in the US for the past 8-10 years they aren't the only folks out there originating loans or aware of the market doings. You mentioned Countrywide, Bank of America, Wells Fargo - all of these companies are mortgage banks or banks who all have or have had subprime origination shops working for them. I have competed with these companies for years, so to say that it was just mortgage brokers is just plain irresponsible and incorrect. The Secretary of AZ Department of Financial Institutions spoke once suggesting that mortgage banker loan officers were the recipient of consumer complaints by a ratio of 2 to 1 over mortgage broker loan officers in the state of Arizona. I guess this isn't direct evidence that mortgage bankers were closing these types of high risk loans (which they were and probably still are on a limited basis like everyone else) but it does suggest bigger staff problems in the banking home front than the mortgage broker front. Unfortunately, the mortgage broker community is taking the brunt of the criticism of this mortgage debacle while the bankers play victim idly standing by as everyone else gets the torch to their feet. Bankers are every bit to blame for this mess, and they were in every corner of every mortgage loan that was underwritten, and every value scandal that has been busted and those that remain under investigation. Why would bankers standby while their mortgage broker customers get the ax? Simple, there's a lot of money to be made in origination fees that mortgage brokers participate in by originating 60% of the mortgages in the US. This may sound crazy, but is this whole process just an engineered calculated play by the banking industry to take back their industry kicking to the curb millions of homeowners,mortgage brokers and real estate agents? Respectfully, Dale Stouffer http://GetPreQualified.com Your First Step to Buying a Home