Mortgage Bankers Association finding it harder to pay its own mortgage.
Mortgage Bankers Association finding it harder to pay its own mortgage.
The Washington Post notes that last year, the “Mortgage Bankers Association was thrilled to sign a contract to buy a fancy new headquarters building in downtown Washington.” Since then, however, the group “has fallen on tough times as many of the subprime mortgages dispensed by some of its members proved dicey.” The result is that the group is now finding it “harder than it imagined to pay its own mortgage“:
Scheduled to close on the building in the coming weeks, the association will have to pay millions of dollars more than it would have a year ago when it contracted to buy the 160,000-square-foot structure — millions of dollars it is now less able to afford. [...]
Critics also see irony — and some justice — in this predicament. “They are certainly getting what they deserve,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal research group. “Mortgage bankers encouraged people to take out mortgages that were very risky, and the result of that was a large number of the mortgages went bad and caused mortgage interest rates to soar. Now they are the victims of high mortgage rates and chaos in the market more generally.”
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46 Responses to “Mortgage Bankers Association finding it harder to pay its own mortgage.”
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They have been so busy hustling customers who didn't read the fine print, they haven't had time to read it themselves.
April 6th, 2008 at 5:06 pmTomorrow they will make their appointments to see about a government bailout.
April 6th, 2008 at 5:19 pmThe irony of this is just too delicious!! Just deserts in my opinion.
April 6th, 2008 at 5:30 pmI wonder if the association used one of those exotic/creative mortgages they were so happy to sell to anyone who would buy it.
Now that would be the ultimate poetic justice.
April 6th, 2008 at 5:31 pmBut there's no recession!!!
April 6th, 2008 at 5:32 pmExactly right #2. The needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many, in Bushworld.
April 6th, 2008 at 5:33 pmThere are tears , once again, in my crocodile eyes!
April 6th, 2008 at 6:04 pmIf you plant ice, you're going to harvest wind.
April 6th, 2008 at 6:15 pmHey, here's a new property they might be interested in, the US Embassy in Baghdad...
April 6th, 2008 at 6:51 pm'What goes around, comes around'
April 6th, 2008 at 6:59 pm"DING DONG THE WITCH IS DEAD"
Mark Penn Resigns
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heard on sam seder, via huffpo and ?
April 6th, 2008 at 7:01 pmMarie Says:
April 6th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Tomorrow they will make their appointments to see about a government bailout.</em
I agree, Marie. (I often do with your comments. :) )
Sadly, the media will not help point out the hypocrisy of Bush's "compassionate conservatism", which posits that poor people are poor because they amde bad decisions in life, and that it's not the place of the federal government to bail them out of the bad choices they made. But this is thrown away in favor of the corporate-friendly (use your own term to describe it) policy of bailing out businesses that made poor choices. If they go under, rich people get hurt, but if poor people go under, well, they deserve it.
It's time for this administration to go. Jan 2009 is too far away.
April 6th, 2008 at 7:24 pmWay back before most of you were around my Dear Departed Daddy lost the family farm in 1935 or so (I just barely qualify) to the "Mortgage Bankers" thanks to that great Republican President Hoobert Heever. Now it seems as if my Great-grandsons will face the same situation as I when their Daddy's lose the family house to the "Mortgage Bankers" of today thanks to the current great Republican President, George WTF (what the fuch) Bush. When will we ever learn?
April 6th, 2008 at 7:37 pmSo?
April 6th, 2008 at 7:47 pmbwahhhh..hahahah..hahah. too funny. only thing better would be for Obama to classify Bush as an enemy combatant as soon as he gets into the White House.
April 6th, 2008 at 8:05 pmFerrousy!
April 6th, 2008 at 8:16 pmMortgage Bankers Association is facing a triple whammy of woes: Its financing costs are up, its income is down, and the leasing market is slow, leaving it, so far, without a single tenant.
My itty bitty heart is breaking, Boo Hoo!!! I call that devine justice..
April 6th, 2008 at 8:56 pmMortgage Bankers Association-hey call Cheney he has 100 million laying around. He'll give you a loan.
April 6th, 2008 at 8:58 pmAt SUB PRIME RATE....
April 6th, 2008 at 8:59 pmFor TP Admin,
Is your sort function for "Top Rated" working?
I get the number 1 post first regardless of search on "Top Rated" or "Date."
April 6th, 2008 at 9:36 pm"Mortgage bankers encouraged people to take out mortgages that were very risky,..."
I do WISH the mortgage-mess critics would remember to not JUST refer to the victimization of homeowners, as that isn't even HALF the story:
Let us not forget the geniuses who then took the risky loans, reprackaged them as "investment vehicles" and sold them to banks and hedge-funds, who despite being supposed financial experts ALSO didn't read the fine print.
They are still in charge of a mot of money, and they STILL expect to be taken seriously. What they did was nothing short of a PONZI scheme and they alll should be put in chain-gangs
April 6th, 2008 at 9:52 pmand set to work toiling on rebuilding our crumbling physical infrastucture. SOBS!
what the HELL is wintermd talking about?
April 6th, 2008 at 9:55 pmwintermd
You aint seen nothing yet. You'll be alright. You will thrive but your type will still bellyache because you screwed it up and now someone has to fix it.
April 6th, 2008 at 9:58 pmwintermd
April 6th, 2008 at 10:05 pmyep the republican congress.....and we are changing them. They have put us behind the eight ball though so it will take a little more time. Yes the republicans must go.
wintermd
Please enlighten us as to how you think we got to this point, you know a financial crisis that even bush says obviously needs regulating or this would not have happened.
April 6th, 2008 at 10:07 pmas opposed to staying the course with the failed fiscal policies that got us here......
I hope you all take credit for the mess you have made.
April 6th, 2008 at 10:09 pmThe American economy is in recession and according to Larry Kudlow, that is a cause for celebration. On Friday, the National Review regular and CNBC host praised three months of job losses as "an economic cleansing" and beamed that "recessions are therapeutic." And by all indications, Kudlow's prescription of an economic enema for the American people is one shared by John McCain.
For the details, see:
April 6th, 2008 at 10:11 pm"Kudlow to McCain: Americans Need an Economic Enema."
wintermd
You and your 29% ilk are responsible for this mess, and you can spin it until you fall over and throw up from dizziness, but that won't make that fact any less true.
April 6th, 2008 at 10:18 pmBTW, what do you do for a living that makes you an expert on the economy, because these posts show you don't have a clue what the ___ you are talking about?
AngryOne,
I have often observed that the right always drives our economy off the road and I don't understand why. Can anyone explain this phenomena?
I don't believe it is accidenal. they always do it and the only thing I can figure out is that they can buy up the things that others can no longer afford for bargain prices.
If that is true then it follows that they must eventually want to see things get better so they can profit from their accumulated things at much better prices than they bought them for.
For that to happen they must know that at fairly regular intervals or cycles that they must cede power to those who would do the right things to make our economy strong again....
April 6th, 2008 at 10:19 pmKudlow is an idiot.
What Americans really need is an economic spanking, financial nipple clamps and a pecuniary golden shower!
And maybe some fiscal frottage?
April 6th, 2008 at 10:21 pmWhat's the troll talking about?
We haven't had a recession "25 years" thanks to the "good work" of Republicans? Maybe 2008 - 2001 = 30 in troll math, but in the real world the last recession was 7 years ago under Pres Bush -who happens to be a Republican. And we are heading towards another, if we aren't already in it.
There is no way to pin the current financial mess on anyone but this administration, and them alone. They were the ones who decided to deny even the likelihood of a recession, and refused to do anything at all about the worsening economy.
Clinton/Congress/Obama did it? I don't think so...
April 6th, 2008 at 10:26 pmFred Says:
"I have often observed that the right always drives our economy off the road and I don’t understand why. Can anyone explain this phenomena?"
Fred, it is not happenstance, it is deliberate. Just study any financial crap-shoot and you will see the same occurence time after time. The moneyed insiders drive up the price until the small investor takes the bait and jumps in with all his savings. When there are enough new fish in the pond the powers that be pull the plug and watch the little guys go down the drain. When the market has dropped sufficiently they start the cycle all over again. What has changed hands? The sucker's money. The share of stock is still the same share of stock, the ounce of gold is still the same ounce of gold. Old PT (P. T Barnum of Circus fame) was not entirely up to date. The fools now procreate at a rate far greater than his one a minute.
April 6th, 2008 at 10:51 pmGregor.. quite right.
Remember early 2001?
The "Internet Bubble", driven by the usual stock manipulators, burst when everyone finally noticed that nothing of real-world value was being produced. Some investment capital was lost,other investment capital was frozen for a while as potential investors became "risk averse".
THAT market adjustment was called a RECESSION, in pretty short order--Bush43 began talking about having inherited a recession from around APril of that year.
The fix, he said, would be an income tax cut.
And every year since 2002 he has claimed that the income tax cuts were improving the economy, that the economy was "strong" , that it had "never been stronger", that the "tax cuts are working".
HOW THEN, if Bush's cuts were the solution to what was called a recession THEN, can the US be in a recession NOW?
This is one reason why the admin doesn't want to call a recession. Bush's tax-cut policy was BOUND to lead to a recession--it was exactly the same as Reagna's tax cuts, which caused a recession that Bush41 inherited.
Bush 41 maintained the recession because he mainted the cuts for the wealthy and only raised taxes on the lower income strata--when they of course could least afford it.
Clinton's economic policies turned all that around. The Republicans even HELPED--they had the majoirity in both Houses for six years of Clinton's presidency.
And then once EVERYONE is better off, the Republicans return to a failed tax-cut scheme to spite the Democrats and burden the Democrat voter-base. The taxes of the less well-off pay for the tax breaks of the rich, making them even richer.
Their election slogan is "you can be RICH, like us, if you vote GOP". It works on the rubes, but most of them will be impoverished. A few however, will join the ranks as GOP apparatchiks and reap the rewards of GOP welfare and once there they will fight to stay there. And they will repeat the slogan, and claim they made-it on their own honest merits.
Like I said before, if Bush's cuts were the solution to a recession in 2001, HOW can the US be in a recession in 2008?
Why won;t the press ask this simple question?
( yes...yes, I know only too well!)
April 6th, 2008 at 11:18 pmWell done, Crusty @ 39!
I was trying to answer Fred's question but started getting all wrapped -up in the pyschology.
Very succinct explanation. Peple should make a note.
April 6th, 2008 at 11:23 pmPoetic justice, now if Bush and Cheney could be brought to trial for their crimes I could have a more permanent smile.
April 6th, 2008 at 11:23 pmNote the not-so-fine-or-quick footwork by the Bush adulators.
As long as the economy wasn't too bad, they would jabber about Pres Bush's supposed good handling of the economy. The economy was "roaring".
Now that they no longer can deny reality, it's Clinton's, or Obama's, or Congress' fault that a recession is looming -anyone but their Dear (mis)Leader.
Such a deep, entrenched self-delusion and denial would make a fine case study for Freud.
April 6th, 2008 at 11:48 pmwintermd Says:
April 6th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Bail-outs…lets give everyone a bailout…Like that sure works.
Too bad the only socialists in this country are the rich Republicans, screwing the poor again.
April 6th, 2008 at 11:54 pmwintermd Says:
April 6th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
we’re overdue for a recession — we haven’t had a really deep one in over 25 years, thanks to good Republicans in office. — My sense is that there remains a lot of economic idiocy still to be wrung out of the system, which is what recessions are for.
Lets have a good deep one, with Clinton in office. See how long it takes to Impeach her.
this encapsulates the inhumanness of republicans, and the reason they should be crushed and destroyed forever as soon as possible. this is America-hating at its apex. Outlawing the GOP may be the only way to save America.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:09 amto all..
April 7th, 2008 at 1:11 amI'm going to BEDfordshire. Goodnight.
5th Estate Says:
April 7th, 2008 at 1:11 am
to all..
I’m going to BEDfordshire. Goodnight.
Just try to avoid BEDlam. :)
April 7th, 2008 at 1:23 amWhat recession? Oil and defense contracts are doing well, or if you prefer, real good!
Oh, that other stuff. Well the medical and mortgage execs got their bonuses so who cares? Stocks are up since '02 and '05 so everyone wins.
Real wages? What's a fake wage?
Anyway, these guys are in Washington, right? Here's the big business they should switch to: destroying evidence! Yes, the Bush regime did write some things down, if you can believe it.
April 7th, 2008 at 3:30 amrecent proposals and actions by the Democrats fly in the face of any sort of capitalist belief system and will almost certainly serve to extend the depth and duration of the downturn.
They weren't the ones bailing out Bear Stearns. That was the republican-appointed head of the fed. I guess he's just another socialist in conservative garb.
April 7th, 2008 at 7:06 am"Instant Karma's gonna get you..."
John Lennon
April 7th, 2008 at 8:34 amI have a question,
How can one find it harder to pay on a mortgage it does not have yet or a building it does not own yet?
Your post and especially your headline is a bit misleading at best.
April 7th, 2008 at 10:04 amdcrover you aren't making any sense...they are in the bldg. they have a mortgage....your point?
April 7th, 2008 at 11:37 amFred the article says;
Again I ask the same question?
April 7th, 2008 at 3:03 pm