Unless you have been hibernating for the past few months, you are aware of the ongoing subprime loan crisis. The ripple has crossed into good credit markets, hitting rates hard, especially jumbo loans - (loans over $417,000). This crisis has almost single handedly eliminated a lot of other "niche" programs (Alt A loans) especially no doc and stated income loans. A question that must be raised is am I safer with a broker or lender?

To answer this question you must understand the differences. I experienced a perfect example last week while shopping for life insurance. My insurance broker input personal information into the computer and in seconds I was supplied with 10 different quotes from major rated companies. Now if I was to call one of the larger insurance companies I probably would have received one quote. I am not sure if this is good or bad but in my opinion the true value of the broker was choice and expert knowledge of different programs available.

Open Mortgage as well as other mortgage brokers offer similar choices while acting as a mortgage broker. Utilizing relationships with most, if not all of the top rated investors in the industry, we have become experts at where to place loans. We know the real ins and out of the secondary market and this proves to be a value added for our clients. The last thing anyone wants is a deal to die at the table because the investor pulled the plug.

Sure, we can act like a lender and offer one line of products, but why? In these tough financial times, when every deal counts, partnering with mortgage bankers that can offer high quality advice is essential........

 

Lewis Poretz                                                                                                    

President

Open Mortgage

lewis@openmortgage.com  

www.openmortgage.com                      877-345-OPEN

Glad to her that there are some honest Mortgage people out there...I'm almost happy that a lot of companies went under who catered to the subprime market - serves them right for taking advantage of people.

I guess the name of your company, Open Mortgage rings true to it's morals.  Congrats!

While I do think that some lenders were not honest, I'm sorry to see the sub-prime market gone.  This has hurt (1) people with poor credit that needed to buy a home (2) all home owners because with lower demand comes lower prices (3) realtors and (4) lenders.

 You didn't have to be immoral or take advantage of people to service the sub-prime market.  As a realtor, I sold a number of homes to sub-prime borrowers. I used a great lender and no one has had any issues making their payments because both the lender and I made sure that they understood their loan.

So long as people understand clearly and completely what they are getting into and what the consequences are, I don't see why it's a problem. It only becomes problematic when people are taking advantage of others and preying on their lack of comprehension of a contract. If you have poor credit but are in the market for a home, then it's a good thing to be able to buy one.