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 brokerws concerned thatrates — now near historicc lows — will rise. At Businesas First’s deadline, rates on conforming 30-year loands had risen sharply in just afew days, averaging 5.4 percenft at mid-week, according to data from Bankrate.com and MarketWatch.com. That rate is up from a nationap average ofabout 4.85 percent for much of May. Towarfd the end of 2007, consumers began according to mortgage lenders interviewesd byBusiness First. But refinancingg alone won’t revive their business, brokers said.
Refinancing is lucrativre for brokers when interest ratesware low, “but you can’t depends on it” in the long said Don Rupert, president of Mortgage Network Inc., which is No. 10 on the current up from No. 11. “The mortgage business is cyclical enoughn without dependingon refinancing.” On the 2009 Rupert’s company was among the minorityu of brokers who reported making a highefr percentage of new mortgages than refinancings for 2008 85 percent new, 15 percent in his case. LLC, owned by Mohamae el-Ashawah, reported a similare new/refinance ratio, with 70 percent new mortgages closec in 2008 and 30percent refinancings.
No mortgagwe brokerage reported a sharper decline in volume and valuee thanKentuckiana Sunrise, which dropped to No. 18 on the 2009 list from No. 8 in 2008. The valued of Kentuckiana Sunrise’s loans closed droppedf 87 percent in 2008to $10 milliojn from $75 million in 2007, and the numbe r of loans decreased 67 percent, to 165 from 500. El-Ashawajh said that while demand for mortgages remained fairlty constant despite the realestate downturn, Kentuckianq Sunrise couldn’t get capital to After capital markets tightenedc in 2008, capital from private sources and banke dried up and “you couldn’t get anyones to lend you anything,” said el-Ashawah, who addedr that his company never made subprime loans.
That left his brokeragde firm with one source for money federal government-backed mortgage makers such as and . And that moneuy got increasingly expensive, he Pohn, of First Residential, sees better times aheacd for hiscompany — and for the economy has a wholre if government regulators can find a marketf equilibrium. First Residential closesd $160 million worth of mortgagesd during both April and May and is on tracki to match or exceed its 2006 total ofabout $1 Pohn said. But at the moment, gettintg borrowers qualified for loans has gone from beinfga no-questions-asked situation in 2006 to takingf “an act of God” in he said.
The national mortgage marketf has “overcorrected,” he said. Now, there are people trying to buy homeswho “deserve credit, but the marke is so scared and they’re restricting crediy way too far,” he said. Pohn puts the blame squarely on the mortgag industry itself after home loan standards went outthe window, startin around 2006.