Name that mortgage company founder
By Matt Carter, Thursday, August 16, 2007.
Whose thoughts are these, on the mortgage industry credit crunch/liquidity crisis/general freak out:
"Although it’s painful for the whole industry and everybody going through it, we think it’s one of those things that’s going to be beneficial to us in the long run.”
No, it's not Countrywide founder Angelo Mozilo. Although Mozilo said for months that Countrywide was going to pick up market share from competitors during the downturn, the question on many people's minds now is whether Countrywide can continue making loans at all.
No, the mortgage industry executive who sees the silver lining in the storm that's raging this week is Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert.
“We think this is a blessing in disguise for the company because we think that there’s so much carnage out there – less competitors, less people buying marketing and advertising on the Internet where we play," Gilbert told the Detroit Free Press in a story published today.
According to the company's Web site, Quicken Loans closed $18 billion in loans in 2006, and expects to do $23 to $24 billion in business this year. That projection was made before the latest turmoil in the secondary market, but Gilbert tells the Free Press he hasn't laid anybody off, and still hopes to originate more than $20 billion in mortgages this year.
In the last three weeks, he said, Quicken Loans and its bricks-and-mortar sister company, Rock Financial, have switched to funding nothing but agency loans eligible for purchase by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, compared to 70 percent before (Countrywide's doing much the same).
Quicken Loans/Rock Financial is hiring loan officers in Cleveland, Phoenix and two cities in Michigan, Livonia and Troy. (Gilbert owns the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers, who play in "Quicken Loans Arena").
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