Posted on 12/30/2007 9:45:31 PM PST by VxH
During the housing boom, the subprime industry succeeded at more than just writing mortgages. It also shot down efforts by some states to curtail risky lending to borrowers with spotty credit.
Ameriquest Mortgage Co., until recently one of the nation's largest subprime lenders, was at the center of those battles. Working with a husband-and-wife team of Washington lobbyists, it handed out more than $20 million in political donations and played a big role in persuading legislators in New Jersey and Georgia to relax tough new laws. Those victories, in turn, helped blunt efforts by other states to crack down on reckless lending, critics of the industry contend.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
>>it handed out more than $20 million in political donations and played a big role in persuading legislators in New Jersey and Georgia to relax tough new laws.<<
Politicians for Sale
They dug their own graves then.
who is he? am I supposed to know? I haven’t seen his picture in the Mortgage Bankers Daily Newsletter.
[>>it handed out more than $20 million in political donations and played a big role in persuading legislators in New Jersey and Georgia to relax tough new laws.<<
Politicians for Sale]
Bribery. You gotta wonder how much more was passed under the table... to regulators, LEOs, others...
Arnall certainly has a Midas touch; except everything he's touched has turned to worthless fool's gold. GW should hang a big lump of it around the Arnall's neck and make them swim back from the Netherlands.
[I havent seen his picture in the Mortgage Bankers Daily Newsletter]
>>>Working with a husband-and-wife team of Washington lobbyists, it handed out more than $20 million in political donations and played a big role in persuading legislators in New Jersey and Georgia to relax tough new laws. Those victories, in turn, helped blunt efforts by other states to crack down on reckless lending, critics of the industry contend.<<<<
>>>>In June 2004, New Jersey’s Assembly and Senate unanimously passed bills that rolled back parts of the earlier law, including the tangible-net-benefit rule. Mr. Bass, the Ameriquest lawyer, announced that the company would “be offering a full range of loans in New Jersey.” Thousands of New Jersey homeowners subsequently refinanced existing mortgages or took out new loans with Ameriquest before the subprime market tanked. Many of those loans are now in foreclosure.<<<<
Much more at link:
I and probably most people received mailings advertizing sub-prime loans, and you could tell they were a sham right away; the super-low rate was only for a brief period of time, and then would go way up. Also, the Truth In Lending Act would require lenders to spell out the risks involved. I’m surprised, then, that so many people took on these crazy loans.
I don’t understand the greed of these people. They’ve got 20 million bucks to hand out? I’d retire with 20 million or much less.
It reminds me of the S&L crisis. One of the owners in Dallas said, “Whoever has the most toys, wins.”
They were told they could refinance after a year. And there were told the value on the home would go up enough in appraised value that it could be refinanced and they could include the closing costs. And a lot of people did just that. A lot of people refinanced and took the equity in cash. Eventually when it came time to refinance the value wasn’t there.
But,they weren’t told not to go buy a boat that would screw up their ratios!
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