Mortgage Reform

When you get yourself into a bad situation, you try to learn from your mistakes to prevent a repeat.

And that's exactly what's happening these days with the nation's housing crisis. Every part of the home-buying process is now under scrutiny from appraisals to mortgages. According to some, a big reason for record foreclosures is lax lending.

Colleen Stobinski a real estate broker said, "I think that what created this was a lot of very loose mortgage guidelines...fog a mirror, you qualify ...it's true! Nothing down, no interest, no equity into the property... no commitment. I think we created this."

How did lenders make such bad decisions? Some say a big part of the problems was bad brokers: unlicensed, untrained and unregulated mortgage brokers who were more interested in making a commission than a responsible loan.

Gary DelGreco a CMPS mortgage banker said, "There's more to being a mortgage guy than just throwing an interest rate out there and having a guy sign some papers and closing the deal."

So the federal reserve has proposed new rules that would require all states license mortgage brokers...report their disciplinary history...establish minimum educational requirements...and set up a process for revoking the licenses of bad apples. Some states do this now...but many don't.

And it's an idea whose time has come for long-time licensed professionals like Gary Delgreco. "I think that consumers need that and more consumers should want that. And if the interest rate is an eighth of a point higher, then go with the quality individual and a quality company...I mean, you get what you pay for."