Okay, I can't stand it anymore, I have to write about the rise and fall of the Subprime Mortgage Empire, of which I was an unwilling foot soldier for several years.
I underwrote loans, lots of them, sensible of course in the beginning. For some reason the bank thought it prudent that your mortgage payment only be 36% of your income and that you should prove you earned income and could repay your loan. Greed is a funny thing. I remember when two goons from Express Funding showed up in my small mortgage broker's office in 1993 and proudly proclaimed that they would make loans to people with "not so perfect" credit. Really?
Well, we simply didn't have any clients like that, how shameful. Besides, who would pay 10.95% for a mortgage loan when prime was 8.25%. I know that subprime lending had sprouted after the fall of the savings and loan business. If you're really interested in that drivel, Google it, I have better stories to tell.
The mortgage business, at least my slice of it, seemed to be plagued with drama, incest and such a penchant for unscrupulousness that I began to think all the world behaved that way. Oh and did I mention rampant narcissism, reckless endangerment of the dollar and promiscuity?
To be fair, I may have slept with another mortgage professional at one point but I knew deep down if one of them wanted to start a family, I was out - I never saw the mortgage business as a viable future - and, I was right. Dang it.
I worked for the largest financial institution in the world and thought, great, I'll have job security. Nope. While the institution remains, the paltry manufactured home financing business they scooped up during an acquisition is long gone. We were told that they were going to reinvent sub prime lending. The purchased a multi-million dollar proprietary computer program (which failed as had others - more on this later) and sent legions of sales people out to conquer the dreaded question, "What's your niche." That loosely translates into what can your company do for me that the other five companies that came in here earlier today can't do?" This nefarious question made my skin crawl. It didn't matter, what left our mouths was a brief parroting of "We have stated income for wage earners, 90% LTV down to a 580 credit score and imminent default programs" or something like that. I'd like to think that mortgage brokers were loyal but you could bust your ass for two weeks pushing their ugliest file and when you called to find out where to send closing docs, you'd discover that some account executive with bigger boobs and a .25% better rate scooped it up and funded it while you were screaming at the document department to get your closing package out asap or else!
More on this later
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