Congress is working on the Trail Lawyers Protection act to go after the mortgage brokers in the wake of the collapse in the subprime mortgage market. Now a Wharton professor is saying Realtors also played a role in this.
I am not here to defend Realtors. The way I operate is I have a couple of loan officers that I use whom I trust to do right by my clients. One works for Edina Realty Mortgage and the other works for Prime Mortgage. I like to keep an arms length relationship with my client’s financials. It’s more comfortable that way. I work with a lot of friends and associates. I really don’t need to know what their salary is or what kind of debt load they are carrying.
In order to put a successful real estate transaction together, the real estate agent must act as the quarterback and must have key members on his team that he can trust in order for this to work.
I’d like to ask where were these geniuses were during 2005-2006 at the peak of the subprime mania? Perhaps folks like Shanna Smith, president of the not for profit, National Fair Housing Alliance, as well as Wharton Professor Georgette Chapman Phillips were sounding their clarion calls back then, but I doubt it.
Everyone’s looking for the villian in this mortgage market collapse. Certainly there are many culprits. What’s interesting is the lack of responsibility they place on the individuals who took out these mortgages.
If you want to get to the problem, go to the source of the money – Wall Street. That’s where the problems originated, but the attorneys and the housing advocates won’t have much success going after them. Instead, they look at the multitude of opportunity to exploit good loan officers, real estate agents and their respective companies.
Don’t get me wrong, there were and continue to be some bad loan officers and real estate agents operating. The law should go after them if they have harmed consumers. But what appears to be happening is they want to open up unlimited liability for loan officers, mortgage companies, real estate agents and their brokers. In the end, many loan officer and real estate agents will be hurt in the process, but the ones who will feel the most pain will be the American home buyer and seller.