I was at the wedding of a friend of mine yesterday. She was a mortgage broker and her firm shut down a couple of months back. She bought a place in 2004 with an ARM and little money down so she’s underwater from an equity standpoint and renting her place out now. She’s now living with her new husband who doesn’t make much money. The cashflow from her condo is negative about $700/month, which isn’t too bad all things considered but she needs to find a job to cover it. They borrowed money for the wedding.
Anyhow, as you’d imagine, a lot of the people at the wedding were in the mortgage industry. One of six that I spoke with still had a job and she wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be employed. One guy – another friend of mine – worked for his father who had built up a mortgage document-related business he started in 1982. For the last 10 years it’s been internet related. They had 60 clients in 2005 and now they’re down to 5. They’re shutting the company down at the end of October. My friend said, “We’ve made it through a couple of these cycles but this one is just too deep. Maybe we’ll bring it back in a few years if things improve.”
