By David Star, Weidel Real Estate
Wells Fargo is once again in the spotlight. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is considering fining Wells Fargo hundreds of millions of dollars for its mortgage-lending and auto-insurance abuse. Issues arose when a Wells Fargo mortgage banker alleged that the bank falsified records, so it could blame mortgage-processing holdups on borrowers. Additionally, there were claims and accusations of improper mortgage fees. Wells Fargo announced that it would refund "rate-lock extension" fees to some mortgage borrowers whose delays in completing mortgage applications were primarily the bank's fault. The fees in question were charged from Sept. 16, 2013, through Feb. 28, 2017. This is all on top of the big 2016 scandal where Wells Fargo employees had opened millions of checking, savings and credit card accounts that customers never authorized to meet unrealistic sales goals.
…Yikes.
Regardless of all these scandals, Wells Fargo remains fairly dominant. Their stock has remained flat through these hiccups, meaning investors are still confident in the long-term picture of the bank.
However, a statistic that I can’t help but notice was their loan origination volume in 2017: $94.7 billion.
Or to better visualize, -27.2% change from 2016.
It’s fairly known now that banks are consistently losing their market presence in loan origination. Private lenders are beginning to dominate the mortgage lending space, and the trend doesn’t lie, this should continue for years to come, especially with new and improved lenders entering the industry…
Speaking of which have you checked out www.princetonwholesale.com?
Have a great day,
D. Star
The opinions expressed in this post are the sole view of the writer and do not reflect the opinion of Princeton Mortgage Corporation.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash