>>WF is a huge percentage of the jumbo market, around 20% last I read. I would think getting out of that market would be damaging for them (but I guess not if they are doing it). Wouldn't they lose a good percentage of those high net worth banking accounts, investment accounts, etc? The answer is no. They are still charging 18%+ on credit cards, enormous fees for "extras" on checking (its competitor WaMu, for instance, admits it can offer "free" checking because they make so much $$$ off overdraft charges), spreads on corporate loans and investment accounts, etc. In comparison, being a mortgage lender is just part of their 'soup to nuts' market emphasis as a large financial institution. It isn't their sole bread-and-butter. Sheer inertia prevents most people from moving their checking and investment accounts around, and financial institutions know they can count on it. Do I bank with WF? Yup. They have the biggest ATM network in my area, and I live and die on those - I HATE going into a bank. I also have a large number of auto payments set up, which would be a nightmare to try to unravel and move to another bank. Do I have my mortgage with them? Nope, better rates were available from WaMu. Do I have my investment portfolio with them? Are you kidding? Give our family's portfolio to a bank's second-rate investment division? No way! For example, BofA took over US Capital, where some of my (much richer) friends had their portfolios managed. They are EXTREMELY unhappy more than a year later, feel they have really lost the small-firm personal touch, and most of them are starting to look around for other advisors. The notion of keeping all your financial affairs with one bank is passe these days to anyone with financial sophistication. It's like remodeling a kitchen - go with the vendor in each segment that does it better than the competition and has the features you want. The jumbo loan market is actually smaller than we think. It covers a fairly narrow range of homes from the $500K to around $2M or so. RE agents say that homes in the $3M+ range tend to be cash sales; such buyers don't need mortgages.

In doing more research for the owners I've found this...looks like American Home Mortgage has resolved the Freddie seizure of tax & insurance payments issue. "American Home Mortgage Clarifies Certain Information Regarding its Servicing Operations Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae Issues Resolved; Property Tax Checks Mistakenly Dishonored by Outside Financial Institution Will be Honored MELVILLE, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 25, 2007--American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. (OTC:AHMIQ) ("American Home") announced today that it has resolved the issues surrounding the Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae owned loans. American Home currently services more than 220,000 loans, of which approximately 4,600 are serviced for Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae. Immediately prior to American Home's bankruptcy, both Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae took direct control of the homeowner escrow accounts where the monies were deposited by American Home to pay taxes and insurance. Consequently, American Home had been unable to make payments that were due after August 24. American Home is pleased that it has now reached agreements with both Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae regarding these matters. -- Both Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae have made available the funds in the homeowner escrow accounts, and American Home has paid on the behalf of homeowners all tax and insurance remittances scheduled to be made between August 24 and today -- Homeowners will not be liable for any penalties or interest that may have been incurred due to late payment of tax and insurance -- In addition, arrangements have been made so that homeowner escrow funds will be available in the normal course to pay all taxes and insurance due in the future. As part of its agreements with Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, American Home expects to realize value from its servicing rights related to Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae loans for the benefit of its estate. In the case of Freddie Mac, American Home has agreed to temporarily transfer servicing to Bank of America, and Freddie Mac has agreed to allow American Home to sell the servicing rights to a permanent buyer. In the case of Ginnie Mae, American Home has been granted a limited period of time to sell the servicing rights associated with these loans. American Home believes these consensual resolutions are fair and should prevent any further disruptions to administration of the homeowner's escrow accounts. American Home further noted that this matter concerned only Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae; no other mortgage-backed securities portfolios were affected. For the balance of its approximately $60 billion servicing portfolio, American Home continues to submit tax and insurance payments on a timely basis. Separately, American Home announced it had resolved a situation concerning a limited number of checks that were dishonored due to bank error. In early August, due to confusion on the part of an outside financial institution regarding accounts affected by the American Home bankruptcy, approximately 500 property tax checks were mistakenly dishonored. This misunderstanding has been corrected. -- American Home has actively worked to replace any dishonored checks to date and stands ready to do continue to do so. -- Tax authorities that may have received dishonored checks may contact (866) 540-5834 to pursue replacement. American Home regrets any inconvenience or anxiety caused to homeowners as a result of either of these situations. The Company's objective is to continue to provide high quality mortgage servicing to homeowners." I'm glad they issued an apology. /tricia

DD#2 and I were discussing multiple births, since she just had twins. She said she couldn't imagine what people really did to handle this if you have more than 2. We decided you'd just have to have a bunch of volunteers. People are always telling her they'll come over and babysit, or what can I do, but when push comes to shove, it's just lip service. I feel for this poor guy. I hope he went to a church that's very active and has some gals that are good are organization and have a helping spirit. God bless him!

I don't have an account with Wells Fargo, but own some stock. The stock dipped a bit. I do understand how this could have happened. I haven't heard that any customers lost money - just that their deposits were used in a manner not disclosed to them. There could have been extra fees; I don't know. I fault management for setting up this situation. I saw something similar years ago in the company I worked for. We had a vice President who thought it productive (and fun to watch) to create competition and ill will among his working managers, the guys af the bottom of the management chain who are tasked with doing actual work and getting things done. It nearly wrecked the company. Instead of fostering an atmosphere of cooperation the company once had, it turned manager against manager. The production and maintenance engineers searched the system to find ways to shift costs to a different department. They found loop holes in the internal accounting system. One example: The factory ordered a batch of screws to assemble a particular product, however, due to an error in the orfering process, these parts were improperly heat treated and were useless, scrap in other words. Under normal circumstances, these parts would have been scrapped, new ones ordered, and the scrap loss would have been charged to the factory's budget. The factory was in one town and the development office was at another location 600 mile distant. The factory would enter a drawing change request for something very minor like a small change in the plating formula. This often happens when a vendor has a slightly different process, but one that is yet suitable. The home office approves the change and marks the box to scrap the older parts thinking there was not many and not knowing it was an entire lot for a week's production. Bingo! The scrap charges goes against the Development Dept.'s budget instead of the factory. In the accounting system, the cost of making the product has been artificially lowered. An accumulation of such shenanigans over the course of a year alters the true cost of manufacturing the product and its profit, which in turn, skews management's decisions about selling price and whether or not to continue to make the product, or to begin planning for a replacement or redesign. Upper Management was using certain pieces of data from the accounting system to calculate yearly bonuses to the line managers, and these managers were busily thwarting the accuracy of the system. It was a bad time to be working there. Thankfully, the executives caught on to what was happening and replaced this VP.