John Habeeb
Title: Regional Sales Manager, Cambridge Mortgage Group
Age: 59
Experience: 29 years
“My first loan was typed on a typewriter, on an IBM Selectric, and if you made a mistake it was not good,” John Habeeb recalls of his early days in the mortgage business. The Braintree native carved out a niche making jumbo loans and financing for professors and medical professionals at Alexander Mortgage Corp. In 2008, when the market for jumbo loans dried up, Habeeb joined his longtime friend, John Battaglia, at Cambridge Mortgage Group. Recently, Habeeb and Battaglia put their heads together and came up with a new idea to get in front of more brokers now that the market has shifted back to the purchase business.
Q: You guys have been running a series of seminars on the qualified mortgage and ability-to-repay rules – how did you come up with that idea?
A: We were looking to get in front of more real estate brokers and do that in a way that was beneficial to them and beneficial to us. The idea was, we would provide information about these topics, which were coming into effect, and do that in a way that would give them continuing education credits toward their licensing.
Q: Can you?
A: Yes, but not all companies can. One of the big advantages to a company that’s structured like this is, we’re an independent mortgage company, but we’re owned by [South Shore Bank], so we can do business as any other mortgage company. We can sell loans on the secondary market. If they’re qualified, they’ll be approved by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If they’re not qualified, which a jumbo loan is not, we have access to the bank’s portfolio. It’s the best of both worlds. We can do qualified loans, we can do non-qualified loans, we can do portfolio loans; most types of loans, we can do.
Q: What’s the benefit to Cambridge Mortgage Group?
A: Inevitably, there is a discussion about a particular borrower or a particular type of market situation that a company or broker is facing. For example, there was a local project that was considered non-warrantable, so that ended up coming to us. Another was a situation in Wellesley where one of the brokers had a particular borrower who had to fit into a portfolio loan because of his situation. A direct result of running the seminar was loan business that we would not have gotten had we not put this reception on.
Q: How would you characterize the tenor of these discussions you’ve had during these seminars?
A: I think curiosity is the biggest thing that compels people to want to know more, or come to these seminars to find out what they can about these rules.
There’s always a discussion about documentation. What documentation is required now to get a loan through? Has it changed, will it change, is it going to be more difficult? And it has and it is more difficult. One of the more subtle changes is the ability to repay. Banks have always tried to determine the ability to repay of a borrower. This particular rule says that [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] will not buy a loan from a lender if the ratio that’s used to determine the debt to income is greater than 43 percent.
Most loans fit that, although sometimes you have a ratio that’s 44 or 45 percent. Maybe the guy has a house that’s on the market but isn’t going to sell before he has to buy, so his ratio is a little high because he’s carrying two mortgages. A person can look at that situation and determine that that house he’s selling is well-priced and it’s going to sell soon, so even though his ratio’s over the 43 percent, it’s a loan that should be made. We’re able to do that, other people are not.
Top 5 Golf Courses Played:
- Pebble Beach – Monterey, California
- The Country Club – Brookline
- Farm Neck – Martha’s Vineyard
- TPC Sawgrass – Ponte Vedre, Florida
- Mid Ocean Club – Bermuda
