2007)

Posted November 15, 2007

As many people have heard, Bank of America has decided to exit the wholesale marketplace to pursue a stronger retail presence in the mortgage industry. This is not considered to be a major blow to wholesale. While BOA is a big name bank, their presence in the wholesale market was very small. Many of the brokers I know and have spoken to that were signed up with BOA rarely used them because they were finding better rates with other lenders!

Regardless of that, the mortgage industry is still plugging along strong. While news media and the internet continue to pour out their “the sky is falling” coverage, mortgage rates are still near all time lows and despite the subprime industry woes, there are still plenty of programs out there to service your first time home buyers, low to moderate income borrowers and even those with credit issues! And with the selection of homes available, your message to people on the fence is to jump in NOW!

Rates right now are still hovering in the lower 6% range (have seen them vary between 6.25-6.5% all week) and with programs like My Community Mortgage, House America, as well as the FHA government programs, there is no reason not to have a hot holiday season!

The soft market is the result of fear my friend. With the news media coverage of the “worst collapse in the mortgage market”, people have held still because they are afraid they can not buy. While the news media in my opinion is no longer really news, they are competing for advertising dollars, so big scary headlines help capture audiences. I doubt they will let this go for quite some time… even after all the dust clears, there will be continuing coverage of all the players that caused it to begin with.

Our job as professionals is to let people know that now is one of the best times EVER to buy a home. You can negotiate more than ever, buy more home for the money and RATES ARE STILL AMAZING!