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Wells Fargo CEO - US housing slump far from over

Thu Nov 15, 2007 9:45am EST

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NEW YORK, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) Chief Executive John Stumpf on Thursday said the U.S. housing downturn is far from over, but the eventual rebound should be fairly quick as inventories of unsold homes decline.

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Speaking at a Merrill Lynch & Co. banking conference, Stumpf said the downturn resulted in part from "froth, unscrupulous lenders, (and) borrowers who got too greedy. In 2006 the music stopped.

"I don't think we're in the ninth inning of unwinding this. If we are, it's an extra-inning game," he continued, using a baseball reference. "We have more down to go, but once we reach the bottom, the inventory is going to come off pretty quickly."

San Francisco-based Wells Fargo is the second-largest U.S. mortgage lender and fifth-largest bank. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

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