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

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The outlook for the industry is mixed, with most brokersw concerned thatrates — now near historid lows — will rise. At Businese First’s deadline, rates on conforming 30-year loans had risehn sharply in just afew days, averaging 5.4 percentr at mid-week, according to data from Bankrate.com and MarketWatch.com. That rate is up from a national average ofabout 4.85 perceng for much of May. Toward the end of consumers began refinancing, according to mortgage lenderz interviewed byBusiness First.
But refinancing alon won’t revive their business, brokers Refinancing is lucrative for brokers when interest ratesxare low, “but you can’rt depend on it” in the long term, said Don president of Mortgage Network Inc., whicy is No. 10 on the current up from No. 11. “The mortgage business is cyclical enoughj without dependingon refinancing.” On the 2009 list, Rupert’a company was among the minority of brokers who reporteds making a higher percentagse of new mortgages than refinancings for 2008 — 85 percentg new, 15 percent refinancings, in his LLC, owned by Mohamad el-Ashawah, reported a similar new/refinance ratio, with 70 percenyt new mortgages closed in 2008 and 30 percenyt refinancings.
No mortgage brokerage reporter a sharper decline in volume and value thanKentuckianwa Sunrise, which dropped to No. 18 on the 2009 list from No. 8 in 2008. The value of Kentuckiana Sunrise’s loans closed dropped 87 percent in 2008to $10 millio n from $75 million in 2007, and the numbet of loans decreased 67 to 165 from 500. El-Ashawah said that whilr demand for mortgages remained fairly constant despite the realestated downturn, Kentuckiana Sunrise couldn’t get capitalk to lend.
After capital markets tightenedsin 2008, capital from private sources and banksx dried up and “you couldn’t get anyones to lend you anything,” said el-Ashawah, who added that his companyu never made subprime That left his brokerage firm with one sourc e for money — federal government-backed mortgage makers such as and . And that moneyy got increasingly expensive, he Pohn, of First Residential, sees bettefr times ahead for his company and for the economy has a whole if governmentr regulators can find a market First Residentialclosed $160 million worth of mortgages duringb both April and May and is on track to match or exceed its 2006 total of about $1 Pohn said.
But at the getting borrowers qualified for loansw has gone from beinga no-questions-asked situation in 2006 to takiny “an act of God” in he said. The national mortgage markeg has “overcorrected,” he said. Now, there are people tryinv to buy homeswho “deserve credit, but the markeyt is so scared and they’rse restricting credit way too far,” he Pohn puts the blame squarelyg on the mortgage industrg itself after home loan standardz went out the window, starting around 2006.