Last update January 9, 2008

Bio

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.

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 developed a nationwide electronic network that lenders 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. In August, 2005, GHR was purchased by Metavante Corporation and is now a part of Metavante.

In 1997 Professor Guttentag began to phase out his teaching at Wharton 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 this web site. 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, were listed on this site for easy access by consumers. See Upfront Mortgage Brokers. In 2003, the certification process was extended to internet-based mortgage lenders. See Upfront Mortgage Lenders. In 2006, it was further extended to one internet-based lender who discloses wholesale prices and markups. See A New Approach to Selecting a Loan Provider.

In 2006, Professor Guttentag transferred all his intellectual property connected to UMBs, including trademarks, to the Upfront Mortgage Brokers Association (UMBA), a non-profit corporation. UMBA has taken over monitoring and other functions. UMBs are now listed on UMBA's web site, www.upfrontmortgagebrokers.org. UMBA is supported by dues paid by UMBs. The professor is chairman of the board of UMBA, an unpaid position.

Professor Guttentag's The Pocket Mortgage Guide was published in 2003, The Mortgage Encyclopedia in 2004, both by McGraw Hill.

How This Web Site Is Supported

Mostly, it has been supported out of the professor's pocket. He did get a $60,000 grant from the Ford Foundation in 2003 which was used largely to pay for the development of the calculators on the site, and to defray some legal and other costs involved in establishing the Upfront Mortgage Broker program. The only other source of revenue is the arrangement the professor has with Amerisave under which the Professor gets paid for borrowers who access Amerisave through this site. The details of this arrangement are spelled out in http://www.amerisave.com/mortgageprofessor/Agreement.cfm

The professor has never been paid by UMBs, or UMLs other than Amerisave, or any other firms that might be mentioned favorably on the site. The site does not accept advertising. Any of this could change in the future, if it does, it will be immediately and fully disclosed.