Comment Submitted by Katherine Matties

As a mortgage professional with ten years of experience originating and processing VA and FHA home loans, I am disturbed by the language of the proposed regulations. It appears to all independent mortgage companies that the big banking lobby has once again found a way to eliminate their competition. As a mortgage person who prides herself on making good, fair, government backed loans to my clients, I am appalled at some of the changes that my government has proposed and/or implemented all in the interest of "consumer protection". I understand that there are unscrupulous people out there in all professions, however I am left to wonder how taking a one page form and turning it into a 3 page form without any proper guidance to a huge industry is going to make things "easier to understand" for the general public. In addition, the language in the proposed regulations that appears to prevent FHA loan coorespondents from processing FHA loans will, in point of fact, kill the FHA market for anyone other than big-banks who have the 10X increased net worth necessary to underwrite and process per the new regulations. I currently originate and process FHA loans and then present the package to an FHA underwriter who reviews the file, conditions for items, ensures compliance, etc. If this changes, then I am out of a job and out of a company that I have worked the past ten years of my life to build. Not only that, but I didn't do ARMs and Subprime loans to do it...95% of the loans I have done in the past ten years have been VA or FHA 30 Year Fixed rates loans at extraordinarily low interest rates. Yet I feel like the government has seen fit to regulate me as though I were a criminal with every intent of harming my clients financially. I get Christmas Cards and Thank You Notes from my clients...not hate mail. And, if the truth be told, it is the large banks who were backing most of the subprime loans and now they are the ones that our legislators are letting write policy?