Taylor Bean’s FHA Suspension May Mean Trouble for Home Buyers
Bloomberg.com – By David Mildenberg and Jody ShennAug. 5 (Bloomberg) — Taylor, Bean and Whitaker Mortgage Corp.’s expulsion from the ranks of Federal Housing Administration lenders may make it harder and more expensive for cash-strapped consumers to finance home purchases.
The FHA, the government mortgage insurer, yesterday suspended Taylor Bean, its third-largest lender, citing possible fraud. It’s “distinctly possible this is going to be the end of Taylor Bean,” said David Lykken, managing partner at consultant Mortgage Banking Solutions in Austin, Texas.
FHA mortgages represent about half of all new loans for home purchases, up from about 10 percent at the start of 2008, as borrowers with low down payments or poor credit get turned down for other financing, according to a Bank of America Corp. report last month. Taylor Bean, based in Ocala, Florida, does business across the U.S. through loan brokers and other lenders. It ranked 12th among U.S. mortgage originators in the first half of this year with $17 billion of loans, or 1.7 percent of the total, according to industry newsletter Inside Mortgage Finance.
If closely held Taylor Bean goes out of business, mortgage rates may rise as lenders face less competition, said Michael Moskowitz, president of the New York-based home lender Equity Now Inc., which last sold a loan to Taylor Bean a year ago.
“It’s just a question of demand and supply,” he said in a telephone interview yesterday. “If Taylor Bean goes down, it’s a pretty big deal.”
read article here… Taylor Beas FHA Suspension May Mean Trouble for Home Buyers – Bloomberg.com
