INDUSTRY LEGEND Q & A
Q & A
WITH JOHN COUNCILMAN, PRESIDENT, AMC MORTGAGE CORPORATION & SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF AIME
Q: HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN THE MORTGAGE BUSINESS?
A: My background was varied. In college, I took engineering, accounting, business, law, and computer science courses. In the mid-1980s, I was working as a television engineer before I got into the mortgage broker business. My wife was also in the business. Savings and loans were the primary source of funding for mortgage brokers at that time. She started her own business in 1984 with two partners. She was doing Fannie Mae loans, which were very different from savings-and-loan-funded loans. They had a lot more rules, probably even more than they have now.
I thought I could use her company’ s PCs to do the work that everyone else was doing by hand and do it in no time. I started by creating a Good Faith Estimate program. It used to take an hour to create one of those by hand and my program did it in about thirty seconds. We were taking applications on notebook computers in 1986 and were perfectly positioned to take advantage of the refinance boom. That was my introduction into the mortgage business, and it was fascinating.
Q: DO YOU THINK YOU AND YOUR COLLEAGUES ARE OVERREGULATED, UNDERREGULATED, OR APPROPRIATELY REGULATED?
A: We are quantifiably overregulated, or rather, I’ d say improperly regulated. We need a level playing field between everyone who originates mortgages. We should all be licensed. Mortgage brokers were labeled as the cause of the mortgage meltdown. Later we found out they weren’ t responsible— it was the programs that were designed to make lenders’ balance sheets look good. But it was too late because Dodd-Frank had already been written.
Q: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MORTGAGE BROKERS( NAMB) WHEN THE MORTGAGE CRISIS HIT?
A: I had the interesting pleasure of being named the treasurer at that time. It had been a very large organization, but it was decimated by the crisis. I realized we were $ 2.5 million in debt with $ 100,000 in the bank and our payroll was $ 30,000 per month. I read the riot act to the Board, and it was decided that I would take over as NAMB’ s Business Manager. We had to let the staff go. We negotiated our debts, and within a year, we were back in the black. Those were difficult times.
Q: WHY DID YOU ACCEPT A LEADERSHIP ROLE WITH AIME, WHICH IS SEEN BY SOME AS A COMPETITOR OF NAMB?
A: I saw the merit in what Brokers Against Whole-Tail Lending( BRAWL) was doing. At first, I didn’ t think it could possibly succeed. NAMB looked at BRAWL like it was the black plague, which resulted in some friction. Wholesale lenders took BRAWL very seriously. So, I just watched for awhile. I was told not to mention BRAWL or anything about its founder, Anthony Casa, so I didn’ t.
I began to realize something was amiss at NAMB, because it very often sided with wholesale lenders. In the last eight years, I was the only NAMB President who was a mortgage broker. That and other positions NAMB was taking bothered me.
Anthony called me to talk about his movement. He was very rational and intelligent and laid out what he’ d like to see in the industry. I knew he had bad blood with the current NAMB president, who is not a mortgage broker. I’ ve seen conflict come and go, and I thought maybe we could put NAMB back on the mortgage broker track. That was not well received. I was rebuffed for having a conversation with Anthony. He wanted to start a new organization because he thought it was impossible to get NAMB back to its roots. I thought the idea had merit. NAMB laid down an ultimatum. They said I could have no relationship with Anthony and still retain my leadership position in NAMB. So I threw in with AIME.
I still have NAMB membership and contribute to NAMB PAC. I don’ t see them as absolute competitors of AIME. We have different approaches. I want people dedicated to what I do and what I believe in and the merits of mortgage brokerages representing me. We aren’ t in competition as much as we have different approaches. People can hold memberships in both.
AIME is attracting younger people, which is exciting to me. We need new and young blood in the industry. We tend to think things can’ t be done differently. Anthony
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