This week's Comment of the Week goes to an MPA reader who stood firm in the face of lending peer pressure
MPA readers were incensed by a story of a Wisconsin couple convicted of fraud who were handed a new trial after their conviction was overturned. Commenters argued on whether the couple, their broker or the bank was responsible for the messy situation. Alette said all parties involved played a hand, and shared experiences of standing firm during the heady days of the housing boom.
"They are ALL responsible. Wall Street for creating the product with all the excess cash they needed income on, the mortgage bankers and banks for not bothering to pull a 4506 from the IRS which would have told them in an instant there was a problem, the underwriter who obviously could tell these borrowers given their level of savings in the bank and previous housing expense didn't make $90,000, the realtor for being willing to do anything for a commission and sell his client down the river when he knew they did not qualify, the mortgage broker who made up the number and position AND the borrowers who if they didn't have the common sense to know they couldn't afford that payment should have and also should have read their documents.
"Being a broker for 27 years I did not do stated income loans and many times was laughed at and cajoled and pushed by underwriters and account executives to make up the position and income to fit the loan. They could not even understand when I said: "I don't do that". When they asked why my response was 'So I could sleep at night.' They would just laugh and deny my loan.
"When I would turn a borrower down that just plain did not qualify he would just go down the street to the next broker who would get him a loan in a heart beat. When a realtor referred someone for a prequalification and I told them they did not qualify I would never get another referral again after that. They came close to putting me out of business then because of my unwillingness to do stated aka liar loans.
"Now after surviving what all the crooks did my income gets cut by 50% minimum because of the downturn in the real estate market and THEN I have to do three times as much work as it used to take for one file because of the extreme over regulation. Not all brokers were crooked by far. The ones who were not are now made to pay for the crimes of all those that did. Something is deeply wrong about that."
