Saturday, November 29, 2008

Major Categories Of Primary Mortgage Lenders

A bank or a mortgage company, which offers home loans can be referred to as a ‘mortgage lender’. There are various categories of primary mortgage lenders. Here, three major categories are described in detail.

• Mortgage Banker:

A lending organization or an individual that either services mortgage loans or originate loans can be referred to as a ‘mortgage banker’.

The role of a mortgage banker is to sell mortgages to the second mortgage market soon after funding. The mortgage banker can, however, continue to service the loan. In this case, the mortgage sale would not terminate the relationship between the lender and the borrower.

A mortgage banker helps the borrowers to select the type of mortgage that will suit their financial objective.

• Portfolio Lender:

An organization is called a ‘portfolio lender’ when it uses its own funds to provide loans, and maintains a record of the loan in the organization's books.

It does not sell mortgages to the second mortgage market. Instead, it keeps most of the mortgages for the purpose of an investment portfolio.

Such an organization is not bound by the Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae guidelines.

The portfolio loan can be sold in the second mortgage market only when it is ‘seasoned’. A portfolio loan becomes seasoned when it reaches the one-year mark without any late payments. In such a case, the portfolio lender becomes a mortgage banker who continues to service the loan.

• Direct Lender:

An individual or an organization that gets the funds for the loans from other lending organizations but makes loans in its own name is termed as a ‘direct lender’. He can either be a portfolio lender or a mortgage banker.

Other categories of primary mortgage lenders include a correspondent lender, a mortgage broker, wholesale lender, online mortgage lender, and a sub-prime mortgage lender. These are described in other related articles.


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