Eric Kandell is making his pitch to veterans. Wearing a red T-shirt, with the words “Low VA Rates” emblazoned across his chest, he looks fit and muscular, as if he had stepped off an Army base himself. In this YouTube video and others, he tells current and former service members how they can take tens of thousands of dollars in cash out of their homes. They can pay off credit cards, remodel a kitchen, install a swimming pool, or travel to Las Vegas. “Do whatever you want,” he tells them. “Imagine your home is like an ATM.”

Kandell is targeting borrowers from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs mortgage program. He’s the 43-year-old president of a company whose very name is a come-on: Low VA Rates LLC. It’s among the lesser-known financial outfits dominating the business of selling cash-out VA mortgage refinancing, which totaled $41 billion worth of new loans over…

By Sydney Sullivan

This will be one of several posts on the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Your thoughts and your owns stories are welcome in the comments section.

Nearly a decade ago, in September 2008, US Treasury Chief Hank Paulson unveiled his historic government takeover of twin mortgage buyers, putting the government in charge of the mortgage giants and the $5 trillion in home loans they back. The plan eliminated the top executives which were out and replaced with Wall Street titans.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing on the financial collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, their takeover by the federal government and their role in the financial crisis. The video below is a 4 hour review of a planned response to the crisis in the housing and mortgage markets at the time of the economic meltdown and crash of 2008.

The…