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The Mortgage Industry
So much news about the subprime mortgage market implosion; daily company closings; and massive profit restatements from large mortgage lenders has really turned the bright lights on an industry that for far too long has been ignored. "Mortgage loan officer" can now safely replace the punch line of any good "lawyer joke" from the 1980s. I am in the industry and it ashames me to admit it to people I meet. There have been so many horrible stories and bad loans. People and lives ruined, homes lost, all by sharks looking for a quick buck. I think that customer satisfaction can't rank any lower in any other industry. The chorus of voices from the industry - small players who are complaining about being forced to close down as the market tightens remind me that "what goes around comes around". These fly-by-night companies defrauded people of millions and millions of dollars and are now crying about the unfairness of big Wall Street firms forcing them to repurchase these bad loans. We as an industry have no one to blame but ourselves. Did we push for tighter controls? Stronger underwriting guidelines? More borrower education? No, we didn't. As an industry we all sat back and got rich and pretended it wasn't our problem - it was the "bad guys". This hear, see and speak no evil approach is manifesting itself in this downturn. This destabilization in the subprime market will hopefully be the catalyst for a federal licensing system, better borrower education and stricter controls on who can deal with people's most valuable asset. It's a terrible shame that it is going to take millions of Americans losing their homes to do something about it.
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