Make Sure You Have A Wells Fargo Loan Officer in Your Rolodex

With the turmoil that has been tearing through the capital markets and the impending merger between Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, the one resource a good real estate agent should have for their clients is a stable lender to turn to. And the marketplace is telling us that one of the best if not the best lender is Wells Fargo. And if you don't have a loan officer from Wells Fargo to refer clients to, you should seriously consider adding one.

The recent merger activity by Bank of America says that they are more interested in acquiring assets and diversifying their financial businesses. Management will be focused on avoiding huge liabilities that came with the Countrywide acquisition and trying to sell new products to their client base with the "thundering herd of stockbrokers" that comes with the Merrill Lynch purchase. Their strategy does not include growing the mortgage loan business and their loan officers will be hamstrung by this lack of interest by management.

Mortgage brokers have had most of their wholesale products discontinued and it just doesn't make sense to add a middleman into the loan transaction when the only value the middleman had (product choices) no longer exists.

Four of the biggest names in retail lending during the boom times are either gone or mere shells of their former selves. Countrywide was gobbled up by Bank of America, Indymac went bankrupt and the government took over, Washington Mutual was at $36 last October and now trades for $2.20 and National City was at $27 last October and now trades at $4.50 with quarterly losses of $1.8Billion.

Wells Fargo seems to be the only company that has avoided the massive losses and whose strategy is to grab market share in the residential lending arena. They continue to offer incentives to home buyers in the form of one-year buy-downs.  Here is an example of an email I received from a loan officeer at Wells Fargo:

Our previous offer involved a free buy down on government loans locked in August. Now we have a free ONE YEAR buy down available on HIGH balance Conforming loans locked BEFORE September 30 (government loans not eligible in this one). Details as follows:

High balance conforming loans between $417,100 and $729,750
Loans locked before September 30 at midnight (not closing, just locked before Sept 30)
Free 1 year buy down with rate bought down 1% below the locked 30 year fixed rate. Example - loan locked at 6.25% on 30 year fixed, first full year payment based upon rate of 5.25%. No cost to your customer.

Please call for details.

Thank you,

Michael Pfeffer
Home Mortgage Consultant
Wells Fargo Home Mortgage
703.967.0709 (mobile)
866.682.0654 (fax)
7620 Little River Turnpike, Suite 300
Annandale, VA 22003
michael.pfeffer@wellsfargo.com

Their rates are competitive, their product line is comprehensive and they are reaching out to consumers and agents while other lenders are busy ramping up their loss mitigation departments.

Comments

[Jason Sandquist]

It's a good thing I have two LO's from Wells Fargo to turn to!

[Apella]

I can not remember the last time a simple title to a blog post made me laugh this much!

Why.... Because It Is So True!

Thanks for making my day!

Please keep up the great work!

[Beth]

This is a funny blog post considering that a Wells Fargo LO got me into a predatory loan and falsified my information on a loan that I have been trying for the past 2 1/2 years to get straighted out. i also, had another LO at another comapny tell me that he had a friend at Wells Fargo that wanted him to work for them and on a tour explained that a large area of file cabinets contained documents that could be falsified to get loans to go through. Needless to say he ran the othe way, beause he was involved with a similar type company in the past that was raided by the government.