The Fat Lady is Warming Up

 

• Wells Fargo has begun laying off an undisclosed number of its home lending employees, little more than a week after reporting mortgage origination volume had dropped 33% year over year, the bank confirmed Friday to Business Insider and American Banker.  
• Anonymous posts on the discussion board The Layoff indicate job cuts hit at least five markets — Phoenix; San Antonio; Minneapolis; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Des Moines, Iowa. “Processing, underwriting, and credit administration teams were notified ‘their position would be eliminated because of the changing mortgage market,’” one commenter wrote. “They were given a 2 week notice.” -- From "Banking Dive".  The US economy is 70% consumer spending and a lot of that spending is done on credit, especially large ticket items like homes and all of the necessary stuff that goes into them.  When someone borrows money to buy a house, there is a long line of lending staff that gets paid along the way.  When an 800 pound gorilla like Wells Fargo starts laying off, you know the gravy train is pulling into the station for a stop.  A Kenny Bing prediction: the return of the short sale of real estate is waiting in the wings and a lot of borrowers are going to have a serious case of buyer's remorse by 2023.