WAMU closing wholesale altogether?
Word on the street is that WAMU is closing their Bellevue wholesale office...
This is pretty serious, consider how much business goes through that office. End of wholesale/brokerage as we know it?
This is pretty serious, consider how much business goes through that office. End of wholesale/brokerage as we know it?
Comments
There, fixed that for you.
But does anyone know the answer???
"they fired all Long Beach employees that were transferred to WAMU conforming reps in Sept. and the Bellevue's Home loan center will shut by the end of Feb. 08."
When I read that, I assumed Bellevue wholesale and not retail.
Brokers are going down.
If Bellevue is closing, I can't imagine why they would keep Everett open.
Thoughts?
So if WaMu gets out of Wholesale in Bellevue and Everett, who are the smaller players that are dependent on them that will in turn be hurt??
I have to wonder how many loans that have been in the pipe line in the past couple of months, that have gone to no mans land.
It would not surprise me if they were going to shut down by Feb as well.
As far as who this is going to hurt, I imagine small, local mortgage brokers will find other wholesale lenders for their conforming loans for now. For non-conforming, since subprime is dying, they will turn to hard money, private lenders for consumers who have the ability to stomach a high interest rate and the cash or equity to operate with a low LTV.
For the first time homebuyers that use to be shoved into a subprime loan, this means the folks who will win are the people who work for bankers/brokers/lenders that have FHA approval.
We should expect an attrition rate of retail LOs in the thousands in 2008 when we see how many of the loan originators (who work for brokers) renewed their license by 12/31/07.
What is the status of seller financing these days? I am not that old, but I do remember hearing of that quite a bit when I was a kid.
Jillayne, if you think there is going to be an attrition of LOs in the thousands, I would hate to see your estimates for RE agents....
The dynamics of originating in a small town are somewhat different. First you'd need to tease apart refinancing from purchase money mortgage loans. Many refis were originated across the state by lenders who were not located in this state. Direct mail, email spam, internet websites, click-through banner ads by lead generation companies (like lowermybills.com and lending tree and nextag), and so forth.
With a purchase loan, homebuyers are more likely (because of being coached by their Realtor) to select a lender within that local community.
When an LO is building business based on Realtor referrals, that LO is more likely to take good care of the homebuyer out of self interest (though I'm sure not entirely) in order to secure future referrals. Within a small town, word of mouth travels much faster.
I'm not in touch with any recent info on an increase in seller financing. I would imagine that if the sellers are in trouble and must sell, they will not have the luxury of carrying back the paper. We'd have to find some stats on how many home sellers are in a position to offer that. Wouldn't they have to own the home free and clear?
As far as Realtor attrition, I started seeing Realtors taking part time jobs as far back as last December (2006).
I just returned from a trip to Sun Valley, ID and many of the agent there only work part time and hold down a second job year round.
I need to do a raincityguide post on LO attrition. Watch for it. I have some new numbers for everyone.