Loan Think

Ex-HomeSide Lending CFO Blake Wilson has been hired as CFO of Alliance Mortgage in Jacksonville. Apparently, Mr. Wilson was brought on board earlier this year. Alliance is privately-held and does not typically issue press releases on such matters. Last month former HomeSide president Kevin Race was hired as president of HomeBanc Mortgage in Atlanta...

The market for "flow" servicing deals is anemic these days, says MIAC's Dan Thomas. According to Mr. Thomas, quite a few originators are selling their newly originated mortgages "servicing-released" to the mega buyers instead of cutting separate flow deals...

In the last Weekend Briefing we quoted FM Watch spokeswoman Beneva Schulte saying that the $6.57 million that Fannie Mae spent in lobbying in 2001 excluded what it paid its in-house (on-staff) lobbyists. However, Fannie Mae spokesman Robert McCarson says that Ms. Schulte is wrong -- that the figure does include in-house lobbyists. "Like she is on so many things concerning us, Beneva is wrong," Mr. McCarson says...

FM Watch complained that last weekend's update item concerning Fannie Mae and lobbying costs was a bit too favorable to the secondary giant. FM Watch spokesman, Beneva Schulte, pointed out that Fannie's lobbying costs for 2001 ($6.57 million) excluded what the Congressionally-chartered mortgage investor is paying its inhouse lobbying staff. According to Senate records, Fannie employs nine inhouse lobbyists: Arne Christenson, Duane Duncan, Nate Gatten, John Hines, Carmen Lowrey, Robert Maloney, William Maloni , Rich Maurano, and Laura Van Etten. We have no idea what each one of these individuals earns, but $125,000 a year (on average) seems like a good guess. That would add another $1.125 million to Fannie's lobbying costs. Of course, we don't know what executive director Mike House and his crew are making either...

In the second-half of last year Fannie Mae spent $3.57 million on lobbying, according to records kept with the Secretary of the Senate's office. In the first-half Fannie spent $3 million, bringing its full-year total to $6.57 million. Two years ago Fannie spent about $6 million in lobbying. Fannie Mae did its own analysis of the lobbying cost of its archenemy, FM Watch, finding that the group spent $2.8 million in 2001. Fannie Mae lobbyists work on a wide variety of issues while FM Watch works on just one issue: battling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...

The huge success that GMAC-RFC has experienced in the subprime securitization market has not been lost on Wall Street. Two years ago Lehman Bros. backed a start-up conduit called Finance America, and now Merrill Lynch is expanding its efforts with a unit called "specialty underwriting and residential finance" or SURF. Merrill, not surprisingly, has tapped GMAC-RFC for talent, hiring away GMAC-RFC's Jamie Willeck and Ranae Lacey. When Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette launched its subprime conduit in late 2000 it hired away RFC's managing director, Jeff Detweiler...

Loan volumes have been fairly strong in January and February -- but not for everyone. A vendor working for Household Finance told National Mortgage News recently that Household's volumes during those two months have been weak and the subprime giant is looking for reasons why. Household does not release its production numbers to the public. The company's PR staff -- as usual -- did not return telephone calls about the matter...

BancOne is in the hunt for another bank and apparently it wouldn't mind buying one with a mortgage banking unit attached to it. No names are being mentioned yet, but it's no secret that Banc One Mortgage has been growing steadily. The bank is also a large player in the home equity business...

A lot has been reported and said about derivatives and their use by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other financial service institutions. FM Watch, a self-described GSE "watchdog" group thinks the two's $1.4 trillion investment in derivatives is a ticking time bomb. The GSEs and their backers, including several equities analysts, say everything's fine, relax. But what about commercial banks? It's been reported that J.P. Morgan Chase has north of $20 trillion in derivatives. So shouldn't the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. be concerned? New FDIC chairman Don Powell told National Mortgage News this past week that derivative investments by banks is being watched by the agency but at this time he says it is not an issue -- at all...

It was quite a year for the residential finance sector in 2001 -- a record year, in fact. According to National Mortgage News and its Quarterly Data Report affiliate, lenders of all stripes produced $2.066 trillion in home mortgages, almost double the previous year's volume..