A few years ago, you couldn’t do any home buying or refinancing research without encountering Washington Mutual mortgage rates.  Times have certainly changed.  Good ol’ WaMu still exists in some form, but it’s no longer the industry giant it was only a few short years ago.

The lack of readily available information isn’t just a byproduct of the numerous complaints about the lender.  It’s primarily due to the events of 2008.  That’s when the United States Office of Thrift Supervision seized control of Washington Mutual, Inc., putting it under the control of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC.

Washington Mutual, Inc. was victimized by a bank run that lasted over a week during the height of the banking crisis.  The failure is even more amazing when you consider just how big and popular WaMu was.  As the sixth largest bank in the country, it was remarkably well-known and many people in search of loans made a point of investigating Washington Mutual mortgage rates, which were often some of the most competitive on the market.

The run on WaMu and the fallout that followed after was an unmistakable sign of a finance sector in trouble.  This wasn’t a problem with a tiny corner bank that failed to remain properly capitalized.  The Washington Mutual implosion was headline news.

The FDIC jumped in quickly and sold the institution to JP Morgan Chase for nearly two billion dollars.  When Washington Mutual Bank was shut down, it represented the largest single bank failure in US history.

Today, as a wholly owned subsidiary of JP Morgan Chase, WaMu still offers mortgage loans, in a sense.  They’re receiving some positive reviews, too:

If you are thinking about making an application for a second mortgage, there’s probably no better lender than Washington Mutual. They provide various refinance mortgage options along with excellent client service and support to make your liabilities less burdensome.

In all honesty, it’s tough to know how much stock to put into these reviews, which seem outdated and based on the pre-failure incarnation of Washington Mutual.  It’s highly possible that entries like these are little more than republications of older material.

That seems likely because the bank now does business exclusively under the Chase flag.  Even a trip to the site’s home page in hopes of checking Washington Mutual mortgage rates will immediately redirect you to Chase’s website.  WaMu undoubtedly exists on paper in some shape or form, but one doubts many people are writing new memos on its letterhead, so to speak.

Trying to find the current rates for new loans and refinance opportunities produces very few results and many of them are of questionable accuracy.  A search for Washington Mutual mortgage rates will often turn up sites like this one, which actually show rates from a variety of institutions, but fail to provide any information for WaMu itself.  You’ll notice that most of these resources do, however, provide timely information regarding the interest rates at Chase.

Basically, WaMu has been a casualty of the nation’s financial meltdown.  The once massive bank was right in the middle of the sub prime lending catastrophe and when the bubble burst, it ceased to exist as its own functioning entity.  The future of Washington Mutual now sits n the hands of Chase.  You may no longer be able to readily find actual Washington Mutual mortgage rates.  Instead, you’ll be dealing with JP Morgan Chase, its purchaser.  One can only hope that Chase avoids WaMu’s fates–and by all indications it is a sturdy institution that should survive as the problems in our financial sector are, hopefully, resolved.