June 6th, 2009 by Scott

Today I welcome another real estate proffesional and friend to this blog. Daniel Smelcer is with BB&T and brings us a history lesson:

Hindsight is always 20/20, but this New York Times article, now almost ten years old, sheds some light on the early days of subprime mortgage lending, where the push came from, and what the motivations were. It also includes an eerie quote from Peter Wallison, at the time a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who predicted that if Fannie Mae’s new policies fail, “the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.”

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/30/business/fannie-mae-eases-credit-to-aid-mortgage-lending.html

Daniel Smelcer is the Financial Leader of BB&T’s Decatur Main branch. In addition to managing the branch, Daniel makes second mortgages, lot loans, and small business loans. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in May 2004 with a B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance, and has been with BB&T ever since. He lives in Decatur with his wife, Susan, a graduate student at Emory University.

BB&T, daniel smelcer, home buyers, Mortgage, subprime mortgage

February 27th, 2009 by Scott

BB&T grew from a small NC bank making loans to tobacco farmers to one of the largest banks in the US.  This happened under the leadership of one CEO John Allison.  The link here is to a lecture Mr. Allison did for the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.  Mr Allison has just retired from BB&T and he gives an interesting “insider” look at how the goverment aided the market meltdown.  He goes on to look at what policies and individual changes must be made to get out of this mess.  He has some strong free market beliefs and is not afraid to put them out there.

One warning, this is 97 minutes long, and Allison is not the most entertaining speaker, but you will be impressed by his command of the subject.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ls_financial_crisis

Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, BB&T, John Allison, Mortgage, news, real estate, real estate market, reccesion, tax credit