Paul Muolo

Even Beverly Hills has distressed assets. But commercial real estate advisory firm Lucent Capital has come to the rescue—yet again.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has hired a consulting firm to create contingency plans for taking Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Bank system into receivership.

Although loan originations have been booming at Caliber Funding this year, the lender’s aggressive CEO, Brian Simon, has departed the company without explanation.

Much has been printed about how high the average FICO score is at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac these days. (The weighted average FICO at Fannie, for instance, is north of 760.) But we’re told lower FICOs are out there.

For those of you who doubted my thoughts on mortgage deconsolidation, I forgive you. But it had to happen—deconsolidation, that is.

Mortgage brokers and bankers have been waiting anxiously for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to issue its loan officer compensation rule. This is the rule where the agency convened a ‘Small Business’ panel in the spring to weigh in on compensation and lender education issues. Needless to say, few in the industry came away happy with what was told to them by the agency.

Correspondent One, which aims to be a major buyer of closed mortgages from nonbank lenders and others, has launched and is now in the process of closing some of its first transactions.

We all know that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is in business to help the little guy (the borrower, that is) but why isn’t it taking a close look at underwriting guideline ‘overlays’ being hoisted upon the industry by the megabanks?

It’s no secret that the North Dakota economy is booming – thanks to oil drilling – but home sales are rising along with the time it takes to get an appraisal.

Stonegate Mortgage Corp. has hired Flagstar veteran Paul Wyner as senior vice president/national sales manager in charge of third-party residential lending.

As we’ve reported before, private equity firms have been eyeing the mortgage market for the past two years – in particular MSRs. But here’s the catch: although there has been plenty of ‘talk,’ no household name PE firms (if there is such a thing) have taken the bait.

The Prestwick Mortgage Group is marketing a $58 million package of MSRs backed by mostly multifamily commercial mortgages held by private investors.

The problem with the jumbo MBS market is the sterling credit quality of current production and the staunch unwillingness of originators to sell mortgages into securitization trusts.

Warehouse providers tracked by National Mortgage News increased their commitments from 5% to 200% in the first quarter except for B of A which has drastically cut back on that line of business, shifting it over to its Merrill Lynch affiliate.

Well, well, well (or maybe it should be Wells, Wells, Wells), it’s been quite a week for the little guy. Citigroup started it all off when National Mortgage News published a story about its ‘exclusionary list’ for correspondents. Then Wells Fargo came along and tossed its broker network into the ocean. Oh, and then Wells finished the week off by confirming that it’s killing most of its Realtor joint ventures (mortgage companies). We understand that the survivors include one in Virginia and at least one in Hawaii.

Wells Fargo & Co. has completed a review of its Realtor mortgage joint ventures and plans to slash the number of these operations down to roughly 14 by early 2013.

A day after Wells Fargo dropped its wholesale/broker bombshell, the smoke is starting to clear and some industry players are taking a proactive approach to what may lie ahead.

A day after Wells Fargo quit the wholesale channel, sending shock waves throughout the industry, at least one trade group official believes that eventually the bank may re-enter.

JPM’s improved performance is tied to an increase in origination volumes and a decline in nonaccrual loans. In particular, the bank stressed that its retail/consumer mortgage volume hit a new record: $26.1 billion.

Eighteen months ago National Mortgages News began hearing rumors that Wells Fargo was going to toss its wholesale lending network overboard. The bank denied it and in the ensuing quarters remained among the top ranked table funders in the nation, according to the Quarterly Data Report.