Carrington Mortgage Services will be touting its success in serving the underserved and first-time home buyer market during a segment of the hit TV show ‘Designing Spaces.’
The segment, airing at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 13, ET/PT, on the Lifetime Network, was filmed in Carrington's Ft. Myers, Fla., branch and features real-life clients Derek and Kari Ellerd, who were able to achieve their dream of homeownership with Carrington's help.
Ray Brousseau, executive vice president of Carrington Mortgage Services' mortgage lending division, and his team of branch representatives will appear in the segment to discuss how they were able to help the newlyweds overcome several obstacles during their home loan experience.
‘We are delighted to serve as the go-to 'underserved market' resource for the 'Designing Spaces' audience and to be in a highly qualified position to address concerns, simplify the process and assist all consumers in fully understanding the important aspects involved in the home loan process,’ Brousseau says in a release. ‘There are very limited loan programs available that can assist credit-challenged borrowers when trying to buy or refinance a home.’
Carrington announced its intnetion to go after the underserved market back in March. Along with Wells Fargo, it was one of the first lenders to significantly loosen its lending criteria in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis – lowering its minimum credit requirement for certain loans to a FICO score of 550. It also expanded its guidelines on a number of Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Veterans Affairs (VA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) loan programs.
As Brousseau explains in a recent interview, these non-prime loans are underwritten using a whole different set of criteria compared to the subprime loans of the mid-2000s and are fully compliant with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's new ability-to-repay and qualfied mortgage rules.