Today CNNMoney profiles an out of work mortgage banker who has been sending out 10 resumes a day since he was laid off in Feburary. He just got his first interview.
This week, things are are looking up. Hager, a Jersey City, N.J., resident, went on one interview for a fraud investigator job at a mortgage insurance company and another for a position underwriting employee dishonesty insurance. Executives at the latter told him they’d make a decision within 10 days.
He doesn’t know what next week will bring.
“It’s always flowed for me,” said Hager, 29, who discovered his love of math and finance in high school in Proctorville, Ohio, about three hours southeast of Columbus. “I’ve always had a job and every time I changed jobs, it was for advancement. Now, it’s like ‘What do I do with myself because I can’t wait for that next step.’ “
Hager has joined nearly 125,000 others on Wall Street and at mortgage firms and other financial companies who received pink slips since the start of 2007. It seems that nearly every week another financial firm lets go of thousands of workers at all levels. With the market flooded, it’s hard for the unemployed to land a job, experts said.
He used to work for Countrywide and now is hoping to “get his foot in the door” anywhere, even if it’s just as as a bank teller. Anyone got a job for Josh?
10 resumes a day, no takers [CNNMoney] (Thanks, Matthew!)
It really comes down to the fact that most of the people here commenting don’t have any experience w/ the loan process other than what they’ve read on the internet or POSSIBLY in their home buying experience.
If any of you actually knew what it takes to get a loan approved and how completely ludicrious it is to say loan officers forced loan down people’s throats…most of these posts would not have been made.
Do any of you realize how many people are involved with a mortgage? There are dozens of people that have to collaborate to get a loan approved, signed, funded and serviced. The common links, however, are there has to be a bank/lender/investor to lend the money AND there has to be a borrower willing to sign 50 – 100+ pages of paperwork before the loan is approved.
It’s not like Countrywide or any other lender was sending out blank checks to customers and saying, “Go ahead, spend this money, you’ll never have to pay it back and there are no consquences to borrowing money ever!”.
No, not even close. First, someone has to craft the guidelines in which said investors will be lending hundreds of thousands/millions/billions of dollars to…someone has to pay for an appraisal (and at Countrywide, you were not allowed to even know who the appraiser was or talk to him/her, most of the time), the customer had to give a loan officer all their private information such as social security # and date of birth, a LO had to input the info and pull their credit, the credit had to be interpeted by someone and then graded, a customer had to sign disclosures and send over piles of paperwork, processors would have to process all this paperwork, underwriters would have to review and verify all this paperwork, investors would have to review the paperwork and issue a commitment, lawyers or title companies would have to review deeds/titles, and on and on and on.
Finally, the customer would have to sit down and HOPEFULLY review all the paperwork they are signing. THEN the customer had 72 hours to COMPLETELY reverse the loan at anytime and for any reason by faxing over a recission letter to the bank. FINALLY after all of this it would fund.
How could a loan officer be responsible for all those decisions, all that paperwork? They couldn’t. It was a coordinated effort finalized by the consumer who signed the documents and accepted the loan.
THE END
I think this guy should go back to Ohio. A byproduct of the faltering economy in Ohio is the booming payday loan market.
[www.daytondailynews.com]
I’m sure this guy would be more quaified that most of the loan officers that work at these places and could “get his foot in the door” at one of these places.
Good Luck Hager!
@GrantGannon: Hear, hear! I got laid off from my newspaper job in late August 2006. (the paper cut 100 positions and there have been three rounds of layoffs since then!) Sent out resume after resume after resume, had a few interviews, mostly a whole bunch of nothing. Unemployment ran out, kept job hunting like mad, temped here and there when there were available assignments (Registered with a few agencies). Even that dried up in the last few months. I didn’t have CNN knocking on my door, wanting to do a feature on me, let me tell you.
Being laid off IS incredibly humbling. It’s not fun to be told that you will not be considered for a job, even though you’ve got loads of experience in what’s needed, because you didn’t major in a certain subject in college YEARS ago. It’s not fun to be told – when you’re told anything at all – that you’re underqualified or overqualified or the position isn’t available after all.
Okay, off soapbox.
The good news is that I start a new job a week from Monday!
@drew489: Don’t get so worked up. Most of us don’t have working experience in these fields. I certainly don’t. I’ve never been a banker or a mortgage broker. That doesn’t stop me from reading about it (on the internet and otherwise) and understanding some of the basics.
We get that it is complicated. It’s ENORMOUSLY complicated. That means that we can’t funnel this down to one party at fault, and we shouldn’t. It wasn’t this guy’s fault that home values were too high. It wasn’t this guy’s fault that sub-prime mortgages made it into mortgage backed bonds camouflaged with good mortgages.
that isn’t my contention. Just like any problem, there were multiple points of failure here. There are also multiple potential sources for failure that didn’t result in this crisis by themselves.
But.
The people at these firms played a CRUCIAL part in furthering this mess. Did banks play a part? Sure. Did non-bank financial intermediaries play a part by drafting those derivatives? Sure. Did the originator of the ARM style contracts play a part? Sure. Did the customers play a part? Sure.
But the banks and the loan officers were at the crucial point to say that a majority of these loans were probably bad and the structures they were designed around were more than likely going to generate more defaults than would be acceptable. they were the closest to the transaction and held the information required to make that decision. they know what past mortgage structure looked like. They knew what the likelihood of default was.
What it comes down to is the fact that they weren’t motivated to restrict borrowing. Of COURSE countrywide wasn’t writing blank checks, but they were lending to individuals with bad credit on a limited down payment situation with rising payments over time. Anyone in the lending business who doesn’t see that as a problem probably doesn’t really merit that job. The company in general but the customer facing portion of it in particular didn’t have a motivation to limit borrowing, they had a motivation to push people to borrow and to get them into mortgages that were most amenable to the interests of the broker. A negative amortization loan is a much better instrument, in the company’s eyes, than a fixed rate loan–assuming the default risk is the same (it isn’t), the present value of the sum of future payments on that type of loan is higher. It’s a better deal for the broker and the bank and a bad deal for the customer.
Combine that with a societal myopia about housing prices and a seller’s market and you have a perfect situation to pressure home buyers into loans. Don’t like the terms that we are offering, that’s fine, another buyer will. We will just offer HIM the same loan and you’ll have to wait months to buy a new house when the prices will probably be higher. If you think that pressure like that has no impact on actions you are fooling yourself.
This is not to say that home buyers were faultless. there are plenty of people who didn’t understand what they were doing. but there were FAR more people convinced by the ‘wisdom’ of the market and of the financial prognosticators (and by their loan officers, realtors, and bankers) that their home value would increase at above-average rates. THOSE people are the majority of the folks who got genuinely burned by this. No matter what claptrap you might say about contracts, culpability or whatever, the combination of financing loans on the basis of home value (yes, the fault of the banks and the brokers) and a populace told that home values always go up helped to result in this total mess.
the complication of the issue does not excuse them. Home buyers are losing their homes. and mortgage brokers are losing their jobs. good.
Infantry. We need some in Iraq.
Spare me the “woe is me” and “unless you’ve been there” memes. I was there. I went to college and sacrificed to get a piece of paper that said I was qualified to do a job for which I was perfectly suited prior to stepping foot on campus. I played the damn credentialism game.
Then I got to work as a grunt for two years with no promises and less than minimum wage. I was within two moths of giving up my dream. Then, I got the offer. I moved to NYC. I kicked butt and received glowing recommendations for increase in salary and responsibility. KABOOM! Across the board layoffs. Last-in, first-out. Goodbye dream company, dream job.
Anyway…in my experience there is nearly always a direct correlation that those who are willing to shade truth and shirk ethical and moral responsibility – who “game the system” – are the ones who move up quickly. In finance, this was an absolute given.
Anyone with a conscience, and a lick of common sense, all the way down to clerical well understood that the real estate valuations were ethereal (aka phony). But just about everyone went along. It just so happens that these same folks are now being made to pay the piper. Tough.
If any of y’all choose to remain in a place where morals and ethics aren’t a prime consideration, do not. DO NOT, come crying to the rest of us when life turns against you.
For those who are genuinely innocent and were completely fooled, let this be a lesson. Next time, take care to look beneath the surface. Find out who and what you are dealing with. It isn’t rocket science.
Why is it that a company like Southwest Airlines has folks banging down doors to get hired, but places like cable companies have huge turnover? Open your eyes.
I think chain gangs are a good idea. I would like to chain them up with the “title insurance” people.
@Trojan69: This is a really well-thought out post. Consider this my +1.
Boo hoo!
At the risk of sounding like I am trolling for sympathy I would like to throw in my two cents. My husband got into the mortgage business years ago when a friend of his opened a brokerage. After the few months it took him to realize he’s not a sales guy he took a job there as a loan processor. As the company got bigger and the mortgage business started booming, he witnessed the loan officers’ increasing willingness to push back ethical and legal boundaries.
Thankfully he found a job with a national lender as a loan processor and left the small brokerage. Surely working for the largest national mortgage company at the time would provide an environment with enough rules, processes and oversight that he wouldn’t have to worry about being surrounded by fraud. In the meantime, he decided to finish his degree so he could get out of the biz. A year later, laid off. Entire department jettisoned.
Got another job at another large national lender. Lower level management this time so that was good. Actually received quite a bit of recognition for his mad fraud detection skills. Pushed back on a lot of loans. Made the legal team happy but pissed off the loan officers left and right. Got a few fired on the way but I’m here to tell you that the loan officers had to be pretty damn blatant before the company would kick them to the curb.
Uh oh, mortgage business is starting to get talked about in the press.
ME: “Honey, think you might want to look elsewhere?”
HIM: “Nope, my company stopped doing those loans a year and a half ago. I’m good, the big boss just said so. He just came back from the national meeting with kudos and smiles. We’re the only office in the entire company making money instead of losing it.”
Shit you not, one week later the whole office was closed. They handed out cardboard boxes at the elevators as the employees came in for work.
Alrighty, got the business degree, he can go anywhere now, right? Not so much. Six months later finally got a job at Sprint. Good job, perfect for him, he loved it. Travel was part of the job and he started that on his third week. On his very first day on the road I had to email him and ask him about the post I had just seen on Consumerist about Sprint layoffs. Just the email you want to pick up when your plane finally touches down in another city.
I’m sure you can see where this is headed. Yep, laid off again. This time it’s really bothering him because he finally had a job he truly enjoyed.
So I threw all of this out (and I apologize for the length) to make this point: We tried. He tried. You can say all you want that because he worked in that industry that makes him slimy and unethical and the root cause of all evil. But he’s not. He’s a goody-goody. I don’t say that because he’s a saint, he’s just too paranoid to be a law breaker. He’s not good at rule breaking. He’s not even good at lying. And he’s not comfortable with screwing people. He left the first job because of his conscience. He had to leave the next two because the big guys had enough money and they were done playing.
We’re not stupid, we’ve lived here all our lives and know Sprint’s history. When he took the job we knew there was a very distinct possibility it would lead to another layoff. We didn’t think it would be this quick, but there you go. He wanted to work and be a productive citizen and take care of his family. We don’t want to file unemployment, we want to make it on our own.
So now what? Still think he deserves to be out of job? Those 125,000 mortgage people out of jobs? By and large, those aren’t the loan officers. Those aren’t the reps from Countrywide and First Magnus and BoA that brought in lunch for entire brokerages and authorized hefty kickbacks for the brokers that got you to sign a loan for 1/2 a percentage point more than you could have gotten. They aren’t the appraisers that took cash payments under the table for artificially inflating house valuations. They are the people behind the scenes that were just trying to make a living. Yes, sucks to be us right now. Nope, don’t want your sympathy. Life is shitty sometimes and we’ll get through it, we always do. But please stop and think for a minute before making blanket judgements about someone you don’t know.
Oh, and as a kicker, one of the big lenders came back and sued everyone in that original office for loans that had been done five years prior. Since hubby’s name was on the paperwork as the processor, we got sued, too. It was the last loan he worked on before he left. He hadn’t even finished it but because his name was in the file somewhere he was included. Lender went bankrupt shortly after the lawsuit. We wondered why they pushed so hard to get everyone to settle quickly, now we know.
Okay, thought that lawsuit was a good enough kicker, but the news is on right now and they just reported that Gary Forsee’s compensation package from Sprint included $1.5 million in salary and retirement benefits of $89,516 A MONTH FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE. He got fired for incompetence and running the company into the pooper and he is still making TWICE AS MUCH IN A MONTH AS MY HUSBAND WOULD HAVE MADE IN A YEAR. I have not cried through this whole thing until right now. This is not fair.
Seems as if the fellow in the article was already a soldier or seaman for he was applying for veteran health benefits.
When I was laid off by a dotcom in 2001 and spent a few months dipping into my savings because I was not eligible for unemployment benefits (I wasn’t a permanent resident) I don’t recall any mortgage bankers being too concerned about it. I also don’t recall whining about it.
I have an idea! They can take all of the jobs that we currently have illegal aliens doing! What a concept — American workers, working in America! Brilliant!
@Juggernaut:
Juggernaut I was going to say 2 words, Best Buy!
You stole my Blue shirt=Orange jumpsuit thunder
Bankruptcy law, for the ones who still have a remnant of a conscience. (One of my coworkers left Wells Fargo a few months ago). It’s a growing industry now and a good way to pay some karmic debt. The rest… I hear the Army’s looking. Or maybe organic farming – it’s not too dissimilar from mortgage broking, in that both fields involve a lot of bullshit.
@RandoX: precisely. I hear the Americans need cannon fodder for Iraq.
Put them all to work in Alaska, building a pipeline and the necessary infrastructure for us to start pumping all that Alaskan oil down to the other states so we can have cheaper gas, cheaper transport costs, and start exporting oil ourselves!! I want some of that Dubai thing over HERE!! NOW!!!
Along with them, put every other bum who’s on social welfare (but has the physical/mental ability to work) to work in Alaska, building that damn pipeline!!
I’m SICK of this shit, America needs to UNIONIZE, and MAKE the damn government do our bidding NOW!!
Where’s my violin?
The dude wouldn’t have a problem if he just took any job he could get, and learn to cut back his (probably) excessive lifestyle he cultivated while working as a mortgage banker.
Maybe he should work in healthcare… they always need people.
Force them to live in homeless shelters as a punishment for destroying the economy?
This is the BEST THREAD EVER on Consumerist!! It’s like watching a cage match between a pack of wolerines and a platoon of gimpy Navy SEALs.
Awesome!! Just awesome!!
@Observer2121: I don’t agree with your logic, but I respect your opinions. Good luck regardless.
Ballast?
I’ll bet there are some great jobs in high-end home fixtures, custom cabinet making, marble, that sort of thing.
You know, the stuff that people tend to invest in when they’re going to be in their home for a long time, as opposed to trying to flip it for a quick buck.
Oh, or how about title research?
@louv: You and me both.
@Observer2121: Nope. I wasn’t foolish enough to go into the business field.