Mortgage broker surety bonds
Mortgage broker surety bonds
A mortgage broker is a person who is the middle man involved in bringing together a principal with the lending bank. Most of the states in the United States require the mortgage brokers to have surety bonds in order to get a license to operate. Mortgage broker surety bonds are issued as per the legislations of the state and federal jurisdiction. Mortgage broker surety bonds ensure that there is no default or non fulfillment of obligations which are part of the agreement on the part of the mortgage brokers. During the housing market boom, mortgage broker surety bonds were easy to get as most bonding companies were more than willing to provide bonds as the sector was booming. But the housing industry has cooled down a lot recently and many brokers have made huge losses in the business, some of whom have even filed for bankruptcy. Before issuing a bond, the bonding company would like to ensure that the principal is in a position to pay the company back in the eventuality of a claim being made. However, the dwindling financial status of many of these brokers makes them ineligible for mortgage broker surety bonds. This development saw a major change in the underwriting norms by many of the major bonding companies. Many companies refused to bond any start up mortgage broker. A broker had to be in business for a minimum of two years for them to be considered. Thus the only option left for startup mortgage brokerages is to go for the much costlier option of letter of credit and thus, only those startups that have huge liquidity will be able to open shops. The good thing is that many other smaller bonding companies may be willing to provide mortgage broker surety bonds at a higher rate because as the laws of capitalism says, business will not stop and someone or the other will come forward to fill up any gap that may appear in the market. The rates for mortgage broker surety bonds have increased significantly over the years. In the early 2000s, the rates were typically close to .75% of the bond value. However, this increased to reach about 2.25% towards 2004. The legislation for the bond amount for mortgage broker surety bonds vary from state to state. While some states like Colorado would require a bond of $100,000, some states like Oklahoma requires only $5000 which is a meager amount considering the volume of business that these mortgage brokers handle. States like Arkansas are in between with bond amounts of $50,000. The mortgage broker surety bonds form also varies a lot, for example Pennsylvania state forms are supposedly very different from others and it is of 8 pages when compared to other state forms which are 2 pages on an average. Forms in the state of Georgia lack the aggregate language and is thus unacceptable in other states.