Jan
11
The recent news about Countrywide being bought out by Bank of America is not surprising, I think we’ve all been expecting it sooner or later. Even though Bank of America has a strong presence on the national mortgage scene they have been pretty anonymous in our local area on the Monterey Peninsula. In fact, this past weekend I was visited at an open house by a Mortgage Consultant with BofA which surprised me-I did not know they were around much! Come to find out they do have an mortgage office in Monterey that is shared with the Salinas branch. I think they were probably anticipating the current buy-out plans and wanted to get their foot in the door on the Peninsula side before they got up and running.
The other added benefit they will have is possibly being able to aquire the Countrywide mortgage consultants. Our local branch of Countrywide Home Loans has some very experienced and qualified mortgage consultants. If they are able to hang on to those consultants they will immediately have a presence on the Peninsula that they have not had in the near past. My guess is it will also hurt other localish lenders such as Washington Mutual. A number of years ago it seems like a lot of the mortgage consultants that B of A had moved over to Washington Mutual. I wonder what they are thinking now…
John Juarez, a REALTOR with Prudential Realty in Fremont, CA states that this will help the competitiveness of the mortgage industry and makes a statement from B of A that they are in the mortgage industry to stay.