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Today I was exposed to one of the greediest lenders I have ever seen.  Seems there is a Website called Veterans United Home Loans who has a clever site designed to look like it is a government site.  It also claims to help veterans.  What a joke!

Once the site secures a person with VA eligibility it gets them preapproved and then sells the lead to various real estate brokers for a 25% referral fee.  Now a lot of brokers/agents will gladly pay a 25% referral lead for a preapproved buyer.  Heck, when I sold real estate I too would have gladly paid the fee.

But here is where the real problem begins.  Most brokers/agents sign up the buyer as a buyer client.  This means that they are working on behalf of the buyer.  The brokerage company has a responsibility to get the buyer the best deal and provide meaningful advice to the buyer.

This actually happened today.  The loan officer at the web based lending company did not feel his/her bottom line was large enough and literelly told a professional associate of mine to raise the sales price, and raise the closing cost credit to the buyer so that his/her company bottom line would be better and he/her would make more than a certain amount of commision on the loan.

Well I don't know about you but this is putting it to the buyer by making them pay more for the house than they would have to pay. The lenders loan officer mentioned that it would only cost the buyer an additional $18 per month!  Well how about the inflated price the buyer paid for the house?

This goes against all principals I know and to top matters off, the lender was receiving a half point or $1,100 more than any local lender would have charged to begin with plus the real estate entity they set up was charging the broker a fee of $1650 from the brokers side of the deal.  Where does it end?  Isn't this incredible?

I for one could not believe the lenders loan officer would have the moxy to put this all in writing but they did. But they did.  Simply mind blowing.