Corp Mortgage

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No, we’re not talking about our new best friend Kal in Atlanta. We’re quoting from a fascinating Bloomberg profile of a 27-year-old who played the mortgage game in Orange County until the music stopped.

Highlights of the story Taher Afghani:
--Decided to become a mortgage broker after partying with a bunch of young brokers in Cabo: ‘I had never seen so much money thrown around in one weekend ... It was crazy. All these kids, literally 18 to 26, were loaded -- the best clothes, the cars, the girls, everything.’’
--Quit a $58,000-a-year job managing a Target distribution center to make $120,000 -- often more than $3,000 per loan -- as a broker for Costa Mesa-based Secured Funding Corp.
-- Selling mortgages over the phone to people who had signed up for credit cards, Afghani says he and fellow brokers dispensed with details about rates and fees and instead talked up how borrowers could use home equity loans to pay down other debts. ‘It was easier than financing a car,’’ Afghani says.
--Brokers like Afghani are not required to be licensed or trained to sell loans in California. ‘In other words, the corporation can hire a loan originator right off the street and have them originating loans that day without any education, licensing or individual accountability,’’ the California Association of Mortgage Brokers says.
--Game over: Secured Funding’s once-buzzing office is gutted, Afghani no longer sells loans. ‘Enough is enough,’’ he says. ‘I’m so rock bottom I had to move out of my apartment in Irvine and live rent free with my girlfriend.’’

Thoughts? Comments?
Photo Credit: Reuters