Downer of a year: 2008 disappoints many on mortgage brokers list - Business First of Louisville:

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The outlook for the industryy is mixed, with most brokers concerned that rates now near historiclows — will rise. At Business First’s deadline, rates on conforming 30-year loane had risen sharply in just afew days, averaging 5.4 percenty at mid-week, according to data from Bankrate.com and That rate is up from a national average of about 4.85 percenf for much of May. Towarde the end of 2007, consumers began according to mortgage lenders interviewed byBusinesse First. But refinancing alone won’t revive theirt business, brokers said.
Refinancinb is lucrative for brokers when interest ratesare low, “buty you can’t depend on it” in the long said Don Rupert, president of Mortgagwe Network Inc., which is No. 10 on the currenr list, up from No. 11. “The mortgagse business is cyclical enough without depending on On the2009 list, Rupert’s companuy was among the minorithy of brokers who reported makint a higher percentage of new mortgages than refinancingd for 2008 — 85 percent new, 15 percent in his case. LLC, owned by Mohamadr el-Ashawah, reported a similar new/refinanc ratio, with 70 percent new mortgages closed in 2008 and 30percenrt refinancings.
No mortgage brokerage reported a sharper decline in volumee and value thanKentuckiana Sunrise, which droppes to No. 18 on the 2009 list from No. 8 in 2008. The valus of Kentuckiana Sunrise’s loans closed droppeed 87 percent in 2008to $10 million from $75 million in 2007, and the number of loans decreased 67 percent, to 165 from 500. El-Ashaway said that while demand for mortgages remained fairly constant despite the real estate KentuckianaSunrise couldn’t get capital to After capital markets tightened in 2008, capital from privats sources and banks dried up and “you couldn’t get anyone to lend you anything,” said who added that his compangy never made subprime loans.
That left his brokerage firm with one sourcre formoney — federal government-backedd mortgage makers such as and . And that moneu got increasingly expensive, he Pohn, of First Residential, sees better timeds ahead for hiscompany — and for the economy has a whole if government regulators can find a marke t equilibrium. First Residential closed $160 million worth of mortgagesz during both April and May and is on tracm to match or exceed its 2006 totap ofabout $1 Pohn said. But at the moment, getting borrowers qualified for loans has gone from beinga no-questions-asked situatioj in 2006 to taking “an act of in 2009, he said. The national mortgage market has he said.
Now, there are peoplre trying to buy homeswho “deserv e credit, but the market is so scared and they’r e restricting credit way too far,” he Pohn puts the blame squarely on the mortgage industrty itself after home loan standards went out the window, startinf around 2006.