Talk:Mortgage broker

Where is the damn Mortgage Crisis/Subprime garbage mentioned
Is somebody deleting edits? The mortgage brokers were using Predatory_mortgage_lending.

NPOV issue
The text reads as a promo of mortgage brokers, rather than a neutral encyclopedic article. mikka (t) 00:53, 18 October 2005 (UTC)


 * I respectfully disagree -- given that there are so many errors, I doubt an actual mortgage broker had anything to do with the text in this Wiki. It reads like so many books that claim to "tell the truth" about mortgages, where it has just enough correct yet too much ever-so-slightly incorrect that it can only have been written by unlicensed wannabe journalists who never worked in the industry in any great capacity.


 * I agree completely. I tried to add a "grain of salt" by addressing mortgage fraud and other forms of predatory practices.Piercetp 18:38, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. If this isn't changed then it shows bias by wiki.

Attempts at improving the article
I took a stab at reorganizing the page and removing some of the POV.Exshpos 23:45, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

USA-centric
I have no idea whether mortgage brokers exist in other countries or how they are called there and what their functions are.

The article must clearly split the universal and national-specific aspects. Right now I am putting almost everything in the USA basket. Please pull the common denominatior on top. mikka (t) 20:50, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually, the laws for mortgage brokerage are different from one jurisdiction to another. I will put a section for Canada divided into provinces, as the rules are different from province to province.--Exshpos 18:03, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Whoever is putting in that ridiculous item...
And this is not an advertising space! External links should point to professional associations and not individual brokerage firms!--Exshpos 18:03, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Take your personal opinions elsewhere.

Tried gramatically/stylistically improving the article, don't know much about mortgage brokers, but tried to make the article flow better.--Whatthree16 06:50, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Irrelevant Rubbish
I removed the following section which is not dirrectly relevant to mortgage brokerage and is badly written: === The majority of lenders act as brokers === A lender is usually a savings bank, commercial bank, or mortgage banker with the legal right to fund a mortgage loan. They must demonstrate a minimum credit line sufficient to fund mortgage loans until those are sold to a large servicer. Few fund loans permanently. You should inquire about the rate of loans transferred and to where, before applying for a mortgage with a particular lender. In New York it is required that lenders who are licenced to make a loan (but intend to sell it) disclose to clients the percentage of loans sold in prior years. It may state that the amount is between 75% and 100% or it may be less.

I added a citation needed
For the phrase "a great number of consumers are now seeking out the services of Certified Mortgage Planners". I cannot speak for others, but I had not even heard the term before encountering it in this article, so I wonder at how great that number would be. CodeCarpenter 21:37, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

UPDATE: After seeing multiple bits of information lacking a citation, including some that disagree with each other, I am giving this article a general unreferenced tag until someone with source information can clean it up. CodeCarpenter 22:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Possible external link...
I'm looking to add a link pertinent to an association that enforces mortgage individuals fulfilling their licensing requirements to truly be legit brokers. The National Association of Mortgage Professionals is the first organization to proactively mandate its members to adhere to state requirements as a prerequisite to membership. Their link is http://www.namp.org —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Albertnamporg (talk • contribs) 17:13, 5 April 2007 (UTC).


 * Their page looks like an advertisement for membership. It will likely be removed as this page gets hit by spam extremely often, and that page is not compelling - if it smells like spam, it probably is. There are many associations, and difficult for the anti-spam brigade to judge which are "better." My suggestion is link to compelling content - if this organisation has content, it will be obvious.--Gregalton 17:23, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

"sells"
In the first two paragraphs, I changed 3 instances from the euphemisms "distribute" and "source" to the actual activity of a mortgage broker, which is to "sell" mortgages. This is related to the cleanup needed to try and make this less of a promo article for the profession. Tempshill (talk) 17:21, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

The US part is not accurate in 2014
I think most of that was written before the Recession-related re-regulation took place. I'm not going to update the actual article because I work in this field and am biased.

The "2004 study by Wholesale Access Mortgage Research & Consulting, Inc." should be taken out as irrelevant. A lot has changed since 2004; it's a whole new universe now.

The "difference between a broker and a loan officer" section is problematic. It is unclear in the article that there are both state regulated dedicated broker outfits, and state regulated retail outfits that can and do sometimes broker.

This is accurate...

- Federally regulated depository institutions. These are your local credit unions or Wells Fargo for example. The loan originators there are registered with the NMLS, but not licensed. The institution has whatever training and professional competence program they decide to have. Congress didn't significantly change the professional requirements of these loan originators following the crash even though B of A and a lot of the other big guys needed to be bailed out (remember how I said I was biased? :P ).

- State regulated institutions. Dedicated mortgage loan firms that you cannot open a checking account with. The loan originators at one of these are not "registered," but actually "licensed" with the relevant state government and NMLS. They complete a state approved course of study that complies with federal requirements, and then pass a standardized exam. State regulated institutions are broken down into two broad categories...

-- Mortgage brokering firms. Intermediaries that 'shop around' for the best loan the borrower can qualify for. They do not fund loans they originate directly.

-- Retail mortgage firms. They fund the loans they originate, and then often sell right to Fannie shortly after the deals close. Sometimes they will broker the loans if there is a specific reason to, such as another firm offering a loan product that they do not in the event that the borrower needs that specific product to qualify. "Loan officer" is in fact the title used here, even though they fall under the same broad category of "state-regulated institution" like dedicated brokers.

The article makes it seem like the two broad categories are brokers and depository banks, and makes it seem that retail mortgage firms do not exist. Lots of retail mortgage firms died in 2008-09, but they do still exist.

Instead of "Difference between a mortgage broker and a loan officer," it should be "difference between state-regulated firms and federally regulated firms." I would take out the artificial distinction between "loan officer" and "broker," as state-regulated mortgage firms that can and do sometimes broker also employ loan officers.

Brokers and state-regulated retail loan officers fall under the same state-level regulatory regime and have the same licensing and continuing education requirements. The originators themselves bounce back and forth between employment in the broker world ("Fred's Mortgage Brokerage") and state-regulated retail loan officer world ("Happy Mortgage Company") and all that changes is the office they work out of.

Loan officers at depository institutions (your local credit union or bank where you can open a checking account) fall under the federal regulatory regime and have the same registration requirements. Similar to the above, these folks can bounce between Bank of America and Joe's Credit Union or whatever and all that changes is the office they work out of.

It is more common to start in the federally regulated "no thinking permitted, here is your 100 point checklist for every loan" world and "graduate" to the big dollars in the state-regulated "you are allowed to think" world than the other way around.

For borrowers, there are pros and cons to each. For cookie cutter loans (eg, 30 year fixed rate conforming conventional "sell it to Fannie Mae a week after it closes") it's the same stuff at about the same pricing so go with whoever has the best customer service and wont make you feel like a cookie cutter person. For unique loans to borrowers with unique circumstances ("good" or "bad" circumstances), the state regulated originators that are allowed to think will generally be more likely to make it happen and/or make it happen on better terms.

67.169.63.244 (talk) 20:24, 11 October 2014 (UTC)