Pursuits
Donald Trump the Mortgage Broker Was in Trouble From Start
- Trump Mortgage launched as housing began to crack in 2006
- It’s “a great time to start a mortgage company,” he said
Pedestrians walk past the Trump Building on Wall Street in New York on April 18, 2016.
Photographer: David Williams/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Donald Trump had heard all the chatter, the idle talk about how the U.S. housing market was overheating and trouble was looming. He was unfazed. It was the spring of 2006 and he was pushing a new mortgage business, Trump Mortgage LLC.
Trump had big plans for the company. It’d be based in his iconic 40 Wall Street building and broker $3 billion in loans in the first year alone, some $100 billion within a decade. His son, Donald Jr., had helped him shape the business plan. That April, when asked about the signs of cracks emerging in housing, he was dismissive, telling CNBC that it’s “a great time to start a mortgage company.”