Jack M. Guttentag: The Mortgage Professor

He is Jack M. Guttentag, now Professor of Finance Emeritus, formerly Jacob Safra Professor of International Banking, at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Earlier he was Chief of the Domestic Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, on the senior staff of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and managing editor of both the Journal of Finance (1974-77) and the Housing Finance Review (1983-89).

Professor Guttentag has been a student of the home loan market for many years, and his bibliography of scholarly articles, books and monographs is large and diverse. He has also been an active practitioner, serving as a consultant to many government agencies and private financial institutions, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, USAID, Freddie Mac, Citicorp, Dominion Bancshares, the World Bank, J.P. Morgan Securities, the New Zealand Bankers Association, and many others. In addition, he has been a director of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh, Guild Mortgage Investments, and First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Rochester.

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Throughout his career, Professor Guttentag has been concerned with the difficulties faced by consumers in the home loan market. In 1985 he joined with a colleague at Wharton to found GHR Systems, Inc. which has developed a nationwide electronic network that lenders can use to deliver complex mortgage information quickly to loan-officer employees, to mortgage brokers, and to consumers using the internet. The company also provides easy-to-use tools that enable loan officers to act as consultants to borrowers during the origination process, while speeding up the process. Some clients of GHR Systems are Washington Mutual, Charter One Mortgage, Homecomings Financial, Radian Guaranty, Cendant Mortgage and others.

In 1997 Professor Guttentag began to phase out his teaching at Wharton in order to focus his efforts more fully toward helping consumers navigate the home loan market effectively. He began a weekly column on mortgages that is nationally syndicated, and began the development of his web site,www.mtgprofessor.com. The major purpose of both is to help consumers make better decisions.

In 2000, Professor Guttentag in collaboration with several mortgage brokers developed Upfront Mortgage Brokers (UMBs). Brokers who agree to do business in accordance with UMB principles, and who display these principles prominently on their web sites, are listed on his site for easy access by consumers.

In 2006, Guttentag teamed up with Amerisave, an Upfront Mortgage Lender, to provide disclosure of the lender's wholesale mortgage prices and its markup to borrowers who access Amerisave through www.mtgprofessor.com. Guttentag monitors the site and guarantees the markup for consumers.

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