I returned a voicemail message from US Bank who purports to be the servicer of my account. I did not use the term mortgage because I believe I have been defrauded into some type of financial arrangement other than the mortgage I signed up for originally. The infamous robosigner Linda Green is associated with my "loan documents" which originated with Wells Fargo. When I informed the US Bank representative (Mallory-female) that I was returning US Bank's call she delved into some script about Freddie Mac instituting a new policy that requires them to call an account holder if they have not received the monthly payment by the third of the month. I asked Mallory to put it in writing and she said that US Bank would not do that. I read an interesting article earlier today about Freddie Mac:
Fannie and Freddie, Still the SocialitesBy GRETCHEN MORGENSONTHE mortgage business is moribund. New loans are down. New foreclosures are up.
But why let a little sorry news get in the way of a good party? Last week, almost 3,000 people descended on the Hyatt Regency in Chicago for the 98th annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers Association.
The price of admission: about $1,000 a head. But for that grand, you got to hear the band Chicago play hits from the ’70s. And David Axelrod and Jeb Bush give speeches. And experts discuss things like demographics, the politics of housing and the future of the mortgage industry, according to a flier for the event.
“Gather the information you need to help your business and our industry drive change, ” the pitch went.
The city of Chicago was no doubt grateful for the conventioneers’ dollars. Besides, Mayor Rahm Emanuel knows something about this industry: he used to be a director at the mortgage giant Freddie Mac. Nothing wrong with a bit of schmoozing. But it might seem jarring that Freddie, which was rescued by Washington and today exists at the pleasure of taxpayers, paid $80,000 to become a “platinum” sponsor of this shindig. Fannie Mae, that other ward of the state, paid $60,000 to become a “gold” sponsor. Keep in mind that taxpayers bailed out Fannie and Freddie to the tune of about $150 billion.
Today, Fannie and Freddie are about the only games in mortgage town. Yes, banks make loans, but more often than not they hand them off to one of the two. So it’s a mystery why Fannie and Freddie needed to help foot the bill for the gathering.
Freddie’s companions in the platinum sponsor list make for interesting reading. One was the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, or MERS, which has repeatedly foreclosed on troubled homeowners and made a hash of the nation’s real estate records. Another was Lender Processing Services of Florida, which made robo-signing a household word.
Perhaps more disturbing is that Fannie and Freddie sent an army of their own to Chicago: 87 people in all. According to a list of registrants, that’s more than hailed from the Mortgage Bankers Association (60 people), Bank of America (58), Wells Fargo (54) and JPMorgan Chase (24).
Only Lender Processing Services had more — 91 — than Fannie and Freddie. (Perhaps they robo-signed their registrations.)
The C.E.O.’s of Fannie and Freddie were conference headliners and gave presentations. But Freddie also sent 15 vice presidents and 14 directors from various units. Fannie’s list included 12 vice presidents, 12 unit directors and three events managers.
I asked Fannie and Freddie what they got out of sending all of these people to Chicago. Representatives of both said participation was an efficient use of taxpayer dollars because it allowed their employees to hold crucial meetings with hundreds of customers to discuss ways to address the housing crisis. Fannie Mae’s spokeswoman, Amy Bonitatibus, added that it has “significantly reduced sponsorship and support of events and industry-related conferences.”
Representative Randy Neugebauer, the Texas Republican who heads the oversight and investigations subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, said he was disturbed by the turnout from Fannie and Freddie. It reflected a troubling “business as usual” approach by the mortgage giants, he said.
“They don’t act like companies that have had a huge infusion of taxpayer money, ” he told me. “Why do they feel the need to go out and spend the money for networking when they have all of the mortgage market in its entirety? ”
Trying to tally the costs borne by the taxpayers for the four-day event in Chicago, Mr. Neugebauer sent a letter last week to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, conservator for Fannie and Freddie. “I am concerned that the expenditures that Freddie and Fannie made in connection with the conference bear no relation to furthering the actual purposes of the conservatorship, ”he wrote.
He requested a rundown of amounts paid by the companies to cover travel, lodging, entertainment and sponsorship. He also asked for details about whether Fannie and Freddie had consulted with the agency beforehand about sponsoring and attending the conference. The agency was asked to respond within a week.
”We’re going to really look through their entire budget and see if we can see signs where they are tightening their belt, ” Mr. Neugebauer said, referring to Fannie and Freddie. “The American people are tightening their belts, businesses all over the country are tightening their belts. These entities can certainly do the same.”
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