From the March issue: On its Web site, the marketing pitch for the Fitzgerald, a condo in Harlem, has a decidedly pre-recession ring: “Where the living is grand and the financing is easy.” The mortgage terms sound that way, too: 5 percent down, with no worries about pesky approval requirements from a nitpicking bank. “The developer … will give you up to a 95 percent mortgage at favorable rates with reasonable conditions,” the Web site reads. But the reason buyers don’t have to concern themselves with a bank is very much related to the recession.

Richard Bouchner, managing director of the Commodore Property Group

From the February issue:
Everyone in the real estate industry knows that the price of admission for a mortgage has gone up. And just about everyone agrees there’s good reason for that, given that loose lending standards were largely responsible for the financial mess that plunged the economy into a recession and sent real estate into a tailspin. With the days of quick and easy jumbo loans and 100 percent financing now merely a memory, mortgage brokers have had to completely alter the way they do business. This month, The Real Deal talked to mortgage brokers and other mortgage industry professionals to find out how the industry is doing in New York City. While nearly everyone said business is up compared to a year ago, when they were dealing with the immediate aftermath of the Lehman debacle, new Federal guidelines designed to protect borrowers and inject more transparency into the system have slowed down the process of securing a mortgage. And the relationship between banks and mortgage brokers is strained, with fewer banks offering fewer products. As one mortgage broker said: “It’s all cookie-cutter stuff; not every borrower fits into a box neatly.” For more on which buyers and buildings are fueling mortgage activity in New York, what kinds of mortgages are being financed and the new standards mortgage brokers are dealing with, we turn to our panel of experts.  [more]

From the February issue: When the Federal Reserve Board invites comments on proposed changes to
one of its regulations, a few hundred responses typically trickle in.
But before its recent deadline for feedback on amendments that
would revise the disclosure rules for closed-end mortgages, or
mortgages that can’t be paid off until they mature, the agency was
deluged with nearly 4,000 comments.
Many came from loan originators, in New York and elsewhere, who
alleged that the Fed’s proposal to restrict a compensation practice
known as yield-spread premiums –YSPs for short — will put mortgage
brokers out of business and hamper lending.

From the January issue: Richard Bouchner, who co-founded real estate and mortgage brokerage
Commodore Property Group in 2003, thought last month that business was
returning after a tough year for mortgage brokers.
He’d gotten a referral for a borrower he described as a
well-qualified, financially savvy New Yorker buying her first
apartment. He’d arranged a 30-year fixed mortgage of around $480,000,
at 5.125 percent with no points. Then his client read the fine print, saw that he’d make $4,800 on the deal, and opted to get her loan from the bank instead.
“She said, ‘Rich, I don’t feel comfortable with this yield-spread
premium,’” Bouchner recalled, referring to the money a mortgage broker
makes for locking in an interest rate above par on a loan for a
borrower. Banks don’t have to provide similar disclosure on their
profit on a loan.