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Buying loans in bulk is a common practice. Treasurer says local lenders less likely to file suit
By Rick Armon
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Sunday, Jan 27, 2008
Deutsche Bank has topped the list of mortgage companies filing foreclosure lawsuits in Summit County for the last two years, despite having no presence in the community.
The German-based bank filed 557 foreclosure suits last year and 564 in 2006, according to data from the county clerk of courts.
Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, CitiMortgage and the Bank of New York rounded out the top five. The list does not reflect who made the original loans, since banks often purchase mortgages in bulk from other lenders.
Banks and mortgage companies have filed nearly 19,000 foreclosure lawsuits in the county over the last five years, contributing to the region's ranking as one of the worst locations in the nation for foreclosures.
''It has not been our local community lenders,'' state Treasurer Richard Cordray said during a recent foreclosure forum in Stark County.
Local banks are more careful in handing out mortgages, have more of a stake in the community and work with people if they run into trouble, he said.
''The problem has been in recent years they have been driven to the sidelines in many cases in the real-estate market by these aggressive products financed typically from Wall Street,'' Cordray said.
A telephone message for comment left with Deutsche Bank was not returned.
Several large national banks have encountered financial trouble because they bought mortgages, including many subprime and riskier loans, in bulk from other lenders. Selling loans to other institutions is a common practice in the industry.
The loans ''are made and then they are sold immediately,'' Cordray said. The lenders ''have no long-term interest in the loan.''
Sometimes the borrower doesn't even know who holds the loan, he added.
A spokeswoman with the Mortgage Bankers Association said the group doesn't have statistics on the percentage of loans that are sold.
Companies that buy the loans in bulk expect a certain percentage to go sour. But there has been a higher foreclosure rate from recent purchases — blamed on the economy and lenders offering low adjustable-rate mortgages that ballooned after several years.
Many homeowners aren't able to keep up with payments when the higher interest rate kicks in.
''All of this could have been avoided if people hadn't taken a variable (rate) loan,'' said Fred Carr, an economic education professor at the University of Akron and director of the H. K. Barker Center for Economic Education. ''If they had taken that fixed rate, none of this would have happened.
''But the banks want to do as many deals as they can, so they make the variable rate as attractive as they can.''
But lenders don't want to foreclose, according to the industry.
''Nobody in the mortgage-servicing business, and certainly not if you own the loan directly, wants to be in the position to foreclose on the property,'' said Tom Finnegan, president of FirstMerit Mortgage Corp. in Canton. ''That is an extremely costly endeavor and the lender, if it owns the loan, never makes money in that process.''
Rick Armon can be reached at 330-996-3569 or rarmon@thebeaconjournal.com.
Deutsche Bank has topped the list of mortgage companies filing foreclosure lawsuits in Summit County for the last two years, despite having no presence in the community.
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