Owner: QuiggleMe.com URL:http://quiggleme.com Join Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2007 12:07:21 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Political, Social, and Economic Commentary - Recent focus on sub-prime lending debacle written by ex-employee of New Century Mortgage Corporation. Incredibly insightful and gut wretchingly honest... Site statistics:Click here
New Century - Where do we go from here? 2007-04-07 22:35:26 Over the last couple of weeks I took a break from blogging about New Century
. I did however write one blog regarding the state of our government - which in my opinion is a modern day oligarchy, a fusion of money and government that when you get right down to it spawned the very circumstance under which a New Century
Mortgage Corporation could take shape, flourish, and implode - all within the span of a decade or so.
There are a multitude of lessons to be learned through this subprime debacle, some of which are already evident and some which have yet to be revealed. I would imagine that the first lesson is that loose monetary policy, left unchecked by free market constraints and placed in the control of private hands, will always lead to an economic imbalance between those controlling monetary policy versus those at the whim of such policy.
The second lesson that follows is that those parties whether individually, severally, or collectively who chose freely to take advant
NAR Manipulating Existing Home Sales Numbers? 2007-04-04 23:42:32 In the present housing market environment the Existing HomeSales
figures released this morning are very suspect. The importance of seller-motivation is entirely ignored in these numbers. I read the methodology section of the NAR web-site. While it sounds straightforward on their site I have to assume that the NAR methodology can and probably has changed due to market conditions.
My guess is that they include short sales and trustee sales (foreclosures) as part of their overall figures. Short sales, which have not occurred in the US for nearly ten years, need to be split-out as they are not a ‘normal market environment’ transaction. Trustee sales (foreclosures wherein a Trustee’s Deed is recorded - i.e. the lender takes the property back) are not arms-length transactions. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the NAR may be including these numbers as legitimate existing home sales - which is not a valid inclusion. Trustee sales are nothing more than a transfe Read more:Numbers
Confessions of a New Century SubPrime Casualty - Part Five 2007-04-04 23:40:24 The age of decadence. I think that’s now how I will refer to my days at New Century
. This installment in the series is going to be a little fun if nothing else. None of what I am about to write is either embellished or untrue. It’s almost laughable how true it is…
I think it was our 2nd year when we attended our first New Century
national sales conference. This was NOT President’s Club - this was a general conference with no production requirements to attend. As a matter of fact some internal staff was included. The reason for clarifying this is because a prudent company would never have put on such an extravagant and costly display as did New Century for this event.
Here’s the deal. We all boarded flights bound for Miami where we stayed overnight on the Norwegian Cruise Line ship Princess of the Sea (or some stupid name like that I can’t remember). Anyway, we got to the ship, sat through some stupid sexual harrassment seminar the whole time I thinking Read more:Casualty
Confessions of a New Century SubPrime Casualty - Part Four 2007-04-04 23:39:56 I never thought I would receive the response that I have when I began writing about the topic of life at New Century
. The subject obviously strikes a chord with a lot of people. The comments I have received are almost all thought provoking and insightful. Some people have suggested I submit a manuscript to a publisher. Others suggest I write more detailed accounts siting actual incidents of fraud and impropriety. Others focus in on the sexual harrassment issue.
What I believe is most important is to focus on what can be learned and what action can be taken to correct mistakes. My views on this subject are both simple and ‘out-of-the-box’. They are ideas that have been forming over time - dating back to the last market shakeout in the wake of the S&L bailout. But I won’t be writing about these topics in this post. I’ll leave them for the next one.
What I will write about is a subject that nearly everyone discounts or altogether omits when discussing the i Read more:New Century
, Casualty
Confessions of a New Century SubPrime Casualty - Part Three 2007-04-04 23:39:26 I never thought I would receive the response that I have when I began writing about the topic of life at New Century
. The subject obviously strikes a chord with a lot of people. The comments I have received are almost all thought provoking and insightful. Some people have suggested I submit a manuscript to a publisher. Others suggest I write more detailed accounts siting actual incidents of fraud and impropriety. Others focus in on the sexual harrassment issue.
What I believe is most important is to focus on what can be learned and what action can be taken to correct mistakes. My views on this subject are both simple and ‘out-of-the-box’. They are ideas that have been forming over time - dating back to the last market shakeout in the wake of the S&L bailout. But I won’t be writing about these topics in this post. I’ll leave them for the next one.
What I will write about is a subject that nearly everyone discounts or altogether omits when discussing the i Read more:New Century
, Casualty
, Three
Confessions of a New Century SubPrime Casualty - Part Two 2007-04-04 23:39:01 I left off as Jeanine and I had discovered our region manager had an open-fly policy. So here he was married, having an ongoing affair with a young woman in our office who without a doubt got more favorable treatment than anyone else and was laughingly held up as an example of success. And it didn’t stop there. At least three other women in the time we were there had affairs with our region manager. Some of you reading this might call this heresy, or maybe retribution on my part. Call it what you want, it’s the absolute truth and any New Century
alum reading this cannot argue that fact. They wouldn’t anyway.
I can only sight the three additional affairs as these are the only confirmed cases. Credible rumors abounded in our region about numerous other trists that as I look back had put my wife and I right back where we did not want to be. For those of you who have never been exposed to this kind of environment, it is without doubt a hostile intolerable situation. B Read more:New Century
, Casualty
, Part Two
Confessions of a New Century SubPrime Casualty - Part One 2007-04-04 23:38:37 This post is the first in a series covering my days as an Account Executive at New Century
Mortgage. It also includes some preceding events relative to the story line.
I began this post by jotting down some notes. As I began to write, I couldn’t believe what I was putting down on paper. Fraud rings, FBI investigations, abusive brokers, rampant sexual harrassment and favoritism, and way too many other bad memories to list in this first paragraph.
As I began to write I also began to question myself. Why was writing this important enough to take time away from my schedule? Why would anyone want to read it? What lesson can be learned? The answer is simple - and stems from one word. Greed. Greed is not good. Greed is bad. Nothing good comes from greed. And if there is one thing I know after spending nearly four years in the subprime lending industry it is this simple truth - in subprime lending greed, before all else, was the underlying doctrine.
So let me begin Read more:New Century
, Casualty
Young SoCal Couple’s Story 2007-04-04 23:37:31 Another web-inquiry on my site http://thefundingshop.com came in today from a young couple looking to buy their first home valued at $294,000. They have no money down, no money in savings. The husband’s gross income is $3,000 per month and the wife’s is $1,200. The husband has been on his job for four months but in his line of work for five years. The wife has been at her job for only six months and prior to that had not worked.
In talking to them I learned that when the wife got her new job she learned that there would be an opportunity to earn bonuses come July of 2007. At best the bonuses would amount to a mere few hundred dollars per month. But with this in mind the couple decided it was time to buy a home. Heck when those bonuses kicked in they’d be sitting pretty.
A real estate agent told them that now was a great time to buy and that she could get them into this house with a mortgage payment below $2,000. The couple had already spoken with one mortgage br Read more:SoCal
Why I sold… 2007-04-04 23:37:02 In the summer of 2006 my wife and I sold our 3,600 square foot custom home located one block from the beach in Southern California. As a result of the latest real estate boom we, like many people, reaped a substantial gain in selling at the market’s peak. At the time we had purchased the home (four years earlier) we thought for sure we’d be there for at least ten years. But the market kept climbing. Our potential profit continued to grow. And what had been our plan when we acquired the property – became another plan.
Ironically, friends and family alike thought we were insane for selling. Heck, real estate would always appreciate. Why walk away from all that equity? We heard it all - you’ll never see rates this low, you’ll be priced out of the market down the road, and on and on.
Our decision to sell was driven by a few key factors. Both my wife and I are mortgage industry veterans and had picked up on market signals that are only now being reported in the mainstream media. F Read more:hellip
New Century - thoughts from an insider… 2007-04-04 23:36:37 Wow. I’ve got people emailing me telling me they’re going to forward my blog to the FBI like its some big incriminating piece of evidence (not for me - for New Century
). I’ve got other people emailing me telling me I’m just as culpable for the subprime mess as the broker who commits fraud or the guys at the top who hid loan losses from investors or maybe the real estate agent who did God knows what to put his deal together. Well let me say this to anyone listening - ONLY THOSE PEOPLE WHO COMMITTED WRONGDOINGS SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE!!!!!!!!!!
There, I got that off my chest. Now let’s talk about New Century
. I was planning on ripping into some of the people I worked with who were obvious offenders in aiding and abetting broker fraud, but I’m going to take a different approach. I’m going to use logic. Here I go.
It is logical to believe that a certain percentage of Account Executives at NCEN must have known of fraudulent and predatory lending practices bein Read more:hellip
, thoughts
Don Imus - He ain’t nothin’… 2007-04-13 05:39:57 So, Don Imus made some wise-crack about some hoopster gals at Rutgers. You think that’s bad - listen to this…
Niggers, spicks, kikes, beaners, cholos, honkies, white trash, euro trash, chinks, nips, gooks, towel heads, camel jockeys, sand niggers, porch monkeys, fudgepackers, carpet munchers, tranny’s, and who gives a crap anyway. We’re all Americans for Christ’s sake. Why don’t we just admit we all hate each other and get on with life. I mean, come on, I lived with a black family when I was in my early twenties. You know what I learned - we’re all the fuckin’ same.
The only difference between me and them was they put honey on their god damned chicken. And you know what. It ain’t that bad. My wife gives me shit to this day whenever I douse a drumstick in sweet nectar. “Sweets and meats” she calls it. She’s so white she can’t even see how good it is. Screw her then. More for you and
SubPrime Lending - I’m angry as hell… 2007-04-12 17:46:21 So I’ve read all of your blogs. I’ve digested all of your half-baked ideas on who caused this whole subprime lending mess. Along the way I’ve been applauded, I’ve been trashed, I’ve been hacked, I’ve been interviewed by major news outlets and am now turning them down at the rate of about one a week.
I gotta tell you - I am absolutely appalled at the level of denial you all exercise. You all want to crucify some corporate types because they came in and capitalized on an evolving market and made some money on the backs of suckers. Well guess what, tough shit. They’ll get theirs in the end, or not, I don’t care. But if some idiot was dumb enough to take a two year exploding ARM or some one percent start rate neg am loan because they couldn’t afford the fully amortizing payment they should have gotten, then I say let them all go to hell. And don’t sit there and tell me ‘oh boo-hoo some people were taken ad Read more:Lending
, angry
Aggressive Mortgage Brokers 2007-04-17 02:30:06 I’m going to start posting some examples that demonstrate the problem lenders face vis-a-vis overly aggressive mortgage brokers. This is a complex problem that requires specific definition of the term ‘aggressive’. In this context ‘aggressive’ means a broker who is pushing the limits and/or guidelines set by a lender for certain loan programs in a nefarious manner. Aggressive
does not mean that the broker is pushing the borrower - at least not where this blog is concerned. Predatory would be more akin to a broker pushing, abusing, or ignoring a borrower’s best interest.
Yesterday one of my wife’s loan submissions (she is a wholesale rep for a major Conventional and Alt-A lender) that had come in from a broker/client of hers, was denied. The loan parameters when like this; 1) borrower was providing Full Income Documentation in the form of tax returns verifying over $1.0M of annual income for at least the last two years, 2) borrower showed cash reserves of $800k, Read more:Mortgage
, Brokers
Equity Based Living 2007-04-17 02:28:36 Friday evening I received an inquiry from my mortgage web-site. On the surface it appeared to be a run-of-the-mill lead, albeit a high loan amount, from a person living here in southern California. I responded to the lead with a phone call. Suprisingly I got someone on the phone the first try. After exchanging pleasantries I asked a probing question geared toward eliciting the person’s objectives regarding their financing. What I got as a response was yet another clear example of the complex issues inherent in sub-prime lending.
First, the person I was speaking to was not the borrower, but the borrower’s sister. Let’s call her Mary. Mary explained to me that she was a loan officer and was unhappy with the broker she was working with as he was paying too low a commission split and was exercising too much control over Mary’s sister’s loans. Mary further explained that she was looking for a better arrangement with another broker. This was the impetus for her in Read more:Equity
, Living
New Century - Thoughts from an insider… 2007-04-17 02:27:48 Wow. I’ve got people emailing me telling me they’re going to forward my blog to the FBI like its some big incriminating piece of evidence (not for me - for New Century
). I’ve got other people emailing me telling me I’m just as culpable for the subprime mess as the broker who commits fraud or the guys at the top who hid loan losses from investors or maybe the real estate agent who did God knows what to put his deal together. Well let me say this to anyone listening - ONLY THOSE PEOPLE WHO COMMITTED WRONGDOINGS SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE!!!!!!!!!!
There, I got that off my chest. Now let’s talk about New Century
. I was planning on ripping into some of the people I worked with who were obvious offenders in aiding and abetting broker fraud, but I’m going to take a different approach. I’m going to use logic. Here I go.
It is logical to believe that a certain percentage of Account Executives at NCEN must have known of fraudulent and predatory lending practices bein
Mortgage Market Update - April 16, 2007 2007-04-16 19:46:15 Brett Buchanan, President, QuiggleMe.com and thefundingshop.com - With the first quarter of 2007 complete we now enter what would normally be the ’spring’ buying season for new and resale homes. Both the NAR and homebuilders associations are forecasting rising inventories and softening home prices across the board due mostly to fallout from the partial evaporation of subprime and Alt-A borrowers. Recent market changes caused by the subprime and Alt-A lending consolidation will continue to have a downward effect on homebuyers ability to purchase homes and sellers ability to consumate transactions.
Across the board we have seen 80/20 financing all but disappear - the remaining product is available to a select few borrowers who meet the new tougher underwriting standards. Furthermore, other lending product previously available from the subprime lending sector has for all intents and purposes, vanished.
Alt-A loan product has also suffered the impact of the subprim Read more:Mortgage
, Market
, Update
, April
Equity-Sharing - A Viable Solution to Foreclosure Tsunami 2007-04-18 20:26:38 After much thought I have arrived at what I believe is an equitable solution to the potential disastrous impact the present foreclosure cloud can have on our economic environment. In my thought process I applied simple market-based philosophies when considering the division of interests in a real estate transaction between borrower and lender, and even their relationship to surrounding markets.
First, borrower and lender enter into a de facto ‘partnership’ when credit is granted from a lender to a borrower to consumate a real estate purchase (or refinance). The borrower is in fact committing to payment on such credit in exchange for the benefits derived from ownership including potential value gains over time. A very little understood dynamic exists in this partnership in that traditionally a lender in effect acts as a ‘fiduciary’ in the transaction on behalf of the borrower and is expected by default to exercise responsible underwriting and evaluation pr Read more:Equity
, Sharing
, Viable
, Solution
, Foreclosure
Texas Congressman Ron Paul on Fed Monopoly 2007-04-17 23:25:36 http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2007/tst040907.htm - comments
http://www.house.gov/paul/ - main site
Please visit CongressmanRon Paul
’s site and read his comments on the Federal Reserve monopoly. We need to get behind guys like this and give them a bigger voice. It also appears Chris Dodd is moving in the right direction with his recent condemnation of Greenspan’s 2004 ‘alternative to fixed rate mortgages’ speech and the Fed’s fueling of this most recent asset bubble at the expense of the American homeowner.
April 9, 2007 - The Federal Reserve Monopoly Over Money - US Representative Ron Paul
Recently I had the opportunity to question Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke when he appeared before the congressional Joint Economic committee. The topic that morning was the state of the American economy, and many of my colleagues raised questions about how the Fed might better “regulate” things to ease fears of an economic downturn. The Read more:Texas
New Century - Why I sold… 2007-04-17 22:56:57 In the summer of 2006 my wife and I sold our 3,600 square foot custom home located one block from the beach in Southern California. As a result of the latest real estate boom we, like many people, reaped a substantial gain in selling at the market’s peak. At the time we had purchased the home (four years earlier) we thought for sure we’d be there for at least ten years. But the market kept climbing. Our potential profit continued to grow. And what had been our plan when we acquired the property – became another plan.
Ironically, friends and family alike thought we were insane for selling. Heck, real estate would always appreciate. Why walk away from all that equity? We heard it all - you’ll never see rates this low, you’ll be priced out of the market down the road, and on and on.
Our decision to sell was driven by a few key factors. Both my wife and I are mortgage industry veterans and had picked up on market signals that are only now being reported in the mainstream media. F Read more:Century
, New Century
Seal Beach Foreclosure - A telling story… 2007-04-17 22:08:00 After I sold my place in Belmont Shore we moved a hop skip and jump to Seal Beach
. We got settled in by Thanksgiving of 2006 and headed off to Baja for our annual kitesurfing and Pacifo binge over the Christmas holidays.
We returned from Baja January 6th and noticed that the house three doors down from us was now vacant. There was no for-rent sign, no for-sale sign, no indication as to what or why the owners had up and left. Then the weeds started piling up. I knew something was amiss. Nothing really happened on the property between January and March, but a few days ago a for-sale sign went up on the front lawn. I quickly checked title records and sure enough, the property is now owned by US National Bank - Credit Suisse First Boston CSFB. The property had been purchased July 18, 2005 on 80/20 financing - a $920,000 and a $230,000 2nd. That’s $1.150 million smackers with no equitable interest on the part of the buyer.
I found out from the real estate agent who Read more:Foreclosure
, story
Are real estate agents insane or just stupid? 2007-04-17 16:40:29 You have to check out this blog. I found it on http://realestatevoices.com It’s some San Diego real estate agent’s blog who believes “99%” of all renters are qualified buyers. Oh my God…
http://www.californiarealestatevoice.com/2006/12/28/is-san-diego-homebuying-for-the-first-time/
(Excerpt) - “It was this experience that helped reiterate that buying is within reach for 99% of those currently renting, and helping them discover the unknown is all it really takes. This is what they need to know…”
I swear he made that number up. Where the hell does this guy come up with 99% of all renters being qualified buyers? Sure, if they’re all liars. There’s an old saying in real estate - buyers are liars. Are these agents so dense they believe their own ridiculous rhetoric. The guy continues by saying…
(Excerpt) - “Both of these new home owners mentioned everything from the right time of year, to whether buying is Read more:insane
WAMU At It Again - Turning Homes Into Credit Cards… 2007-04-26 17:52:16 Below is an excerpt from an AP article on Forbes.com regarding a new ‘All-In-One’ product from WAMU. The mortgage enables borrowers to skip the hassles of refinancing to take advantage of fluctuating rates and also to take out ‘automatic’ HELOC’s once again turning their house into a veritable credit card. Yippee! They finally did it! Now I can make [...] Read more:Again
, Homes
, Cards
New Century Paying For Silence Of Top Reps? 2007-04-26 17:14:18 I’ve heard directly from sources at New Century
that top Account Executives have been retained on hefty salary guarantees as New Century
rides out their BK. On the surface this may seem like a benign move on New Century’s part designed to maintain market share as they emerge from bankruptcy. This notion would be plausible [...]
SubPrime Lending - Real stories from the front line… 2007-04-25 17:21:53 When I first started in this business about twenty years ago there was a definite amount of respectability across the board in the industry. My position as a loan officer for a major savings and loan was viewed in large part as a professional endeavor. Borrowers were respectful of lending guidelines and of my position [...] Read more:Lending
, front line
My first tank of Bio Diesel 2007-04-24 20:23:49 It’s official - I’ve got my first tank of bio diesel being delivered to my house in Seal Beach tomorrow. I’m going to top off my tank with some veggie oil refined to burn in my Cummins 5.9L and say ‘adios cavron’ to the oil nipple. I can’t wait…
I’m exploring investing in a bio diesel distribution business. [...]
More Desperate Borrowers - When it rains it pours… 2007-04-24 18:35:58 Now I am receiving inquiries from borrowers knowingly wishing to borrower more than their home is worth. I had received a few of these over the last few days where the borrowers were unaware that their values had declined below their original purchase prices. Last night I received two inquiries where the borrowers were well [...] Read more:Desperate
, Borrowers
, rains
SubPrime Crisis - Real Stories… 2007-04-24 02:59:38 OK. Here we go. I thought I would share some real world stories that taken on a grander scale send a chilling message. On a daily basis my web-site - http://thefundingshop.com takes in numerous inquiries for mortgages of all kinds. The ‘lead-pool’ as it were, is growing scarier and scarier by the day. Over the last few days I’ve [...] Read more:Crisis
, Stories
Equity-Sharing - A Viable Solution to Foreclosure Tsunami 2007-04-18 20:26:38 After much thought I have arrived at what I believe is an equitable solution to the potential disastrous impact the present foreclosure cloud can have on our economic environment. In my thought process I applied simple market-based philosophies when considering the division of interests in a real estate transaction between borrower and lender, and even [...] Read more:Equity
, Sharing
, Viable
, Solution
, Foreclosure
Texas Congressman Ron Paul on Fed Monopoly 2007-04-17 23:25:36 http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2007/tst040907.htm - comments
http://www.house.gov/paul/ - main site
Please visit CongressmanRon Paul
’s site and read his comments on the Federal Reserve monopoly. We need to get behind guys like this and give them a bigger voice. It also appears Chris Dodd is moving in the right direction with his recent condemnation of Greenspan’s 2004 ‘alternative to fixed rate [...] Read more:Texas
New Century - Why I sold… 2007-04-17 22:56:57 In the summer of 2006 my wife and I sold our 3,600 square foot custom home located one block from the beach in Southern California. As a result of the latest real estate boom we, like many people, reaped a substantial gain in selling at the market’s peak. At the time we had purchased the [...] Read more:Century
, New Century
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