Making it more obvious every time regulatory changes are made at high level that those who make the changes are more in favor of big banking than the individual HUD and the GSEs have struck again. Beginning in January you will have a new Good Faith form and HUD settlement statement. The objective is to make it easier for the customer to comprehend and shop for mortgages. The result is it is easier to find the numbers but no easier to shop for mortgages.
Predictions of how these new forms will affect the borrower are difficult with a couple of exceptions. The requirement of the loan officer/originator to include an origination fee which has a zero tolerance of change between the GFE and the HUD will be?disastrous?in the cases where it affects the borrower. The regulation says once the origination fee is on the GFE it cannot change, at all, that means go up OR go down, on the HUD at settlement.
Furthermore another nail in the coffin of mortgage brokers, unrightly blamed in the mortgage implosion, by requiring the broker to SUBTRACT their commission from the closing costs. This is the most ridiculous portion of the new regulation. Why? Bankers are not required to show their commission at all. Brokers, who have never earned even as much as bankers, are required not only to show their commission but to give it back.
I am not a broker but I do know how the system works.
So does this make it better to shop at a broker? You would think so. However it is much more difficult to get a lender to actually close a broker’s loans right now. This is just another sample of how the rule makers are bought by bankers and create legislation which further impedes the home owner’s ability to?achieve?transparent and beneficial financing on their homes.
— Ken Cook NMLS ID 208452