Loan Officer

City of Annapolis plans symposium The city of Annapolis will hold its second annual Small and Minority Business Enterprise Symposium from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday at the Governor Calvert House, 58 State Circle, Annapolis. Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown will be the keynote speaker. Reservations are required. The cost is $25, payable by check to SMBE-City of Annapolis and mailed to 160 Duke of Gloucester St., Annapolis, 21401. Information: 410-263-7940. Workshop to focus on business plans SCORE Chapter 390 will hold a workshop, "Let's Prepare a Business Plan," from 8:45 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday at the Big Vanilla Athletic Club's community meeting room, 1209 Ritchie Highway, Arnold.

William Timothy Kenney, a retired loan officer and decorated World War II veteran, died of complications from diabetes Wednesday at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. The former longtime Towson resident was 87. Mr. Kenney was born in Baltimore and raised in Catonsville. He was a 1938 graduate of Loyola High School and attended Loyola College. During World War II, Mr. Kenney enlisted in the Army and served as a combat medic with Gen. George S. Patton Jr.'s 3rd Army in Europe. Mr. Kenney's decorations included the Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.

When John A. Allison was a young banker, he made a loan to a man who ran a large hog farm that he thought was a sure bet.But one day, the farmer showed up at the bank, pulled out a large ring of keys and announced, "The hogs eat at 5."Then the farmer turned and walked out before a stunned Allison could even respond."That was one of those wake-up calls," said Allison.The bank lost about half a million dollars on the loan, but Allison learned two important lessons: Never make a loan that is backed by collateral that eats.

Vincent Anthony Hungerford, a loan officer by day and sometime rock-'n'-roll singer by night, died in a fire May 3 in his Charles Village apartment. The former Charles County resident was 34.Battalion Chief Hector L. Torres, a spokesman for the Baltimore Fire Department, said investigators have determined the fire started in the living room of Mr. Hungerford's home, in the 2700 block of St. Paul St. The cause of the blaze had not been officially determined.Mr....

Many job-hunters get discouraged when things don't go their way. Often they're waiting for that lucky break. Whether you're just joining (or rejoining) the job market or have reached a career plateau, it's easy to feel stumped when you've hit a roadblock.At some point, most successful people have felt the same way. But instead of letting inertia set in, they try another tack. Eventually, it gets them where they want to go.That's among the more important messages buried in "Women of The Street," Sue Herera's new book about female executives on Wall Street (John Wiley & Sons, 1997)

In late fall 1994, five men huddled behind closed doors to plot the ouster of Jan W. Clark as president of the Bank of Glen Burnie.Four of them were officials or major stockholders of the bank, but the fifth was an outsider whose presence at the meeting raises troubling questions about the management of the bank.He was Brian H. Davis, president of a Baltimore trucking company, a high-rolling political money man -- and a man who later pleaded guilty to obtaining millions of dollars in illegal loans from the bank.

The Baltimore Community Development Finance Corp. formally took title yesterday to a vacant lot at 5426 Clover Road in Northwest Baltimore that had been owned by a former loan officer of the quasi-public agency.The property near Pimlico Race Course went on the auction block yesterday, but no bidders showed up. CDFC vice president Wayne R. Frazier said his agency has not decided whether to sell the lot or build a house on it and then offer it for sale.The property was purchased two years ago by Deborah Bass, then a CDFC loan officer.

New angles on "cheap" stocks, bank statements and "automatic" loan machines:CHEAP IS CHEAP: Speaking of stocks, some people seem happier with 1,000 shares of a $1 stock than 10 shares of a $100 issue. But price is no indicator of value. Some $100 stocks are dirt cheap, some 10-cent stocks very expensive. Value and earnings are what count." (Dick Davis Digest)UNHAPPY SURPRISE! "Uncle Sam might make your nice tax-exempt municipal bond taxable next year. This stems from IRS' quest for money it says is owed by municipal-bond issuers, such as states and towns.

Question: I have been trying to refinance my home for six months. At one point I had a deal with a lender that offered a one-point discount for homeowners in low-income areas. But when rates jumped, we couldn't come to terms.Then my loan officer contacted me about an additional discount of 0.25 percent that the bank was offering. My loan officer told me I qualified for both discounts and her boss concurred.We verbally agreed upon a rate, and I immediately faxed my loan application under those terms.

To find and purchase the best possible home in the shortest time, the following steps are suggested by real estate professionals:* First, research the area where you will be living, if you're not already familiar with it. Locate the community facilities that affect your lifestyle and needs -- preferred schools, churches, shopping center, golf course, etc. And check public transportation lines that lead to your place of employment.* Then, consult with the mortgage loan officer at one or several financial institutions, including the bank you have been using.

A new study suggests that one of the reasons many subprime loans have failed is very weak underwriting. Underwriting is the process by which a lender decides whether a borrower is a good risk. It involves looking carefully at the paperwork provided by the borrower, including a signed loan application, bank account statements, paycheck stubs, tax returns, profit and loss statements (if the borrower is self-employed) and a review of the appraisal of the property obtained by the bank. Underwriting also includes "verifications."

City of Annapolis plans symposium The city of Annapolis will hold its second annual Small and Minority Business Enterprise Symposium from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday at the Governor Calvert House, 58 State Circle, Annapolis. Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown will be the keynote speaker. Reservations are required. The cost is $25, payable by check to SMBE-City of Annapolis and mailed to 160 Duke of Gloucester St., Annapolis, 21401. Information: 410-263-7940. Workshop to focus on business plans SCORE Chapter 390 will hold a workshop, "Let's Prepare a Business Plan," from 8:45 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday at the Big Vanilla Athletic Club's community meeting room, 1209 Ritchie Highway, Arnold.

William Timothy Kenney, a retired loan officer and decorated World War II veteran, died of complications from diabetes Wednesday at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. The former longtime Towson resident was 87. Mr. Kenney was born in Baltimore and raised in Catonsville. He was a 1938 graduate of Loyola High School and attended Loyola College. During World War II, Mr. Kenney enlisted in the Army and served as a combat medic with Gen. George S. Patton Jr.'s 3rd Army in Europe. Mr. Kenney's decorations included the Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.

When homebuilders behave badly, some of their customers may have an unexpected resource: The federal government's "RESPA police," who have become increasingly active in resolving consumers' complaints through nonpublic interventions with builders. RESPA stands for the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, a consumer protection statute that targets kickbacks and other settlement-related abuses. The RESPA police are investigators at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. They are best known for their splashy public settlement agreements with realty, title insurance and mortgage companies, sometimes involving hundreds of thousands of dollars.

William Francis Gray and Carlyn Daue Gray, Towson residents who had been married for nearly 60 years, died from illnesses within 36 hours of each other at different area nursing facilities, separated for the only time since their marriage in 1946. Mr. Gray, 84, a retired credit officer, died of cancer Saturday evening at the Brightwood nursing home in Lutherville. Mrs. Gray, 81, who had been a First National Bank loan officer, died of kidney disease Monday at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium.

A Bowie man shot two men in an Edgewater mortgage office yesterday, killing one with a blast to the chest and wounding the other in the shoulder, before fleeing and apparently taking his life, Anne Arundel County police said. Kenneth Brian Kertesz, 43, of Waldorf, an employee of the mortgage office, died just after 6 p.m. at the Prince George's Hospital Center shock trauma unit in Cheverly, said Sgt. Shawn A. Urbas, a police spokesman. William Augustus Snow Jr., 44, of Chesapeake Beach was treated at Anne Arundel Medical Center and released.

CALL IT FUNNY money for the housing boom: Now you don't need actual cash in the bank to buy a house. All you need is somebody who says you've got money in the bank. Need a hundred grand on deposit to convince a lender that you deserve a million-dollar mortgage? You've got it ... even though you haven't really got it because you "rented" it from a company in Nevada for an upfront fee of 5 percent - $5,000. Sound bizarre? Welcome to the wonder world of "asset rentals" now being investigated by bank and mortgage industry fraud experts.

The Maryland Mortgage Bankers Association will hold a Loan Officer University next month for area mortgage professionals. The three-day event is scheduled from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 12, 13 and 14 at Turf Valley Resort & Country Club, 2700 Turf Valley Road in Ellicott City. The event is $299 for members and $399 for everyone else. Information: Call 410-312-4090 or log on to www.mdmba.org.

DO LOAN officers, mortgage brokers and realty agents pressure appraisers to raise their value estimates on properties in order to "hit the number" needed for the sale or refinance transaction to go through? Preliminary results from the first independent national study of the appraisal industry suggests the answer is a resounding - and disquieting - yes. Nearly three out of four randomly selected licensed appraisers interviewed as part of the continuing National Appraisal Survey said they had been pressured during the past year by a mortgage broker "to hit a certain value."

IN A SURPRISE move that delighted housing advocates, the Bush administration now favors greater disclosure whenever a loan applicant is quoted a higher rate because of credit file information. In a policy statement, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow said the administration supports "granting the Federal Trade Commission specific authority to require notices to consumers when their credit scores caused them to be offered less favorable rates than for which they applied." Though it may sound technical and bureaucratic, the policy announcement has potentially far-reaching financial impacts on mortgage applicants nationwide.