Dejavù. It feels like the end of 2007, maybe the first quarter of 2008.
We are a direct lender, meaning that we underwrite, approve and fund mortgage loans right here, in this office where I am sitting right now. That is a very comfortable place to be in this uncertain lending environment. I mean, when a loan comes in and it makes sense, we approve it, and that borrower gets into their home. Nice.
That said, we do not service loans. Meaning, we close the loan, usually with a commitment from a loan servicing company to pick that loan up and mail the monthly statements and collect the monthly payments. Why does that matter? Well, yesterday the news hit that Taylor, Bean & Whitaker can no longer buy or service FHA loans.
Bummer. And based on having seen this scenario play out over and again over the past 3 years, I would say that TBW will likely be closing their doors for good within hours, or days. And this affects us because it was one outlet that we had to sell our FHA loans, and other government loans such as VA and Rural Housing Loans.
It is too bad. I, thankfully, have other outlets to sell FHA loans, so we go on business as usual in that sense. I only had TWB as an outlet to sell my VA loans, however. So, although as of this writing TBW is still in business and still, supposedly, taking VA loans, all that is likely to change any time now. Which means we are setting up to sell VA loans to other outlets for servicing. Could be 2-3 weeks before we get there, but we will have that ability again soon.
Oh, and in case you were wondering about the inner workings of an Atlanta mortgage lender even further, we only need these outlets for government and niche loans. For the standard, conventional 30 year and 15 year fixed loans, we sell those directly to Freddie Mac, and Freddie in turn finds the servicer for the loan. So, we are good there. Right?
There you have it. More information than you ever thought you would need to know about the back office workings of a mortgage lender.
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