mortgages still hot?

[kev374]

I talked to my brother today, he is a mortgage broker mostly dealing with sub-prime type mortgages. He told me that business is still booming. Infact he said he made $40k in commissions in just the last 3 months. Wow! I thought the mortgage industry was pretty much dead…is there another mortgage broker on this forum who can shed some light on this?

[(former)FormerSanDiegan]

I’m not a broker, but perhaps rates dropping precipitously over the last couple months has spurred some refinance activity.

[IONEGARM]

Refis have been hot lately watching the mortgage appplication index, is this purchase or refi he is handling?

[powayseller]

The mortgage business is shrinking. Home sales are down 30% from last year, so the number of purchase applications has taken a big hit. Refinances are also down, but I don’t know how much.

On Ben’s blog today, I read that ““According to the new 3Q issue of the Quarterly Data Report, loan production fell 11% in the third quarter. And according to the Alternative Products Quarterly Data Report, jumbo loan production fell 21%.””

I know 2 loan officers, one who’s been in business over 20 years and has a client base, and both have lower volume now than last year. I don’t know more details, as they don’t want to talk about it.

[salo_t]

I dont have actual data but the mortgage office next to my office just closed shop. There used to be seventeen mortgage brokers there. If this is any indication I would think that the mortgage industry is not booming.

[powayseller]

Did they close their business or relocate the office? Just asking, because we had a similar story earlier this week, where the company simply moved but an assumption was made they went out of business.

The truss fabricator in the Poway Business Park cleared out the entire lot. The 3 long rows of trussing tables, and a busy yard with about a dozen employees, is gone. All that remains is a large empty lot.

[salo_t]

According to the lady that all of us in the area buy lunch from she said that she had spoken to one of the brokers and she said they were actually closing up not just moving. I believe her becase a personal friend of mine who does mortgages said that business has slowed down to almost nothing. He had to go find a real job.
I have also observed many strip malls have empty offices that used to be RE offices. To me thats a huge sign that things have changed.

[CardiffBaseball]

I have a guy that works for me, bought a 685k house in Sabre Springs (wife and him are russian). Moved up from a condo and is only 27. In any case, he had a trusted Russian Broker that he used, and apparently she is closing her business. She apparently has hardly made any sales this year and needs to take a job somewhere. In this scenario she’ll keep her license, and keep a toe in the water, but trying to rent a storefront and pay the bills for the presence, was proving too costly.

[(former)FormerSanDiegan]

Sounds like right now is a good time to re-finance a loan. Rates are low, brokers are hungry.

[ibjames]

I did consulting for all the C21’s in OC and SD plus their brokers. Let’s just say that when I would go into these places it was a ghost town, except when the motivational speaker was there for the pep talks about diligence and not giving up, and of course, free pizza

[(former)FormerSanDiegan]

Rates down, re-fi activity up, confirmed in the news.

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