Servicing

AmSouth, Birmingham, Ala., is offering a package of disaster relief to assist consumers and small business customers affected by Hurricane Wilma, including flexibility on loan repayments, discounted loan rates, and fee waivers.Skip-a-Payment allows customers with a home equity line of credit or installment loan to skip a payment with no extension fee, AmSouth said. The Special Unsecured Installment Loan Offer lets consumers who qualify for an unsecured loan receive a special rate with no processing fee. Special Business Loan Payment Assistance allows customers to request a 30-day extension for loan repayment. The company said consumers may apply for an array of competitive mortgage products, including affordable housing programs featuring little to no downpayment and requiring no mortgage insurance. And borrowers may apply for a HELOC with a variable interest rate that equals prime minus 0.50%. This rate is good for the life of any transaction that posts in the first 30 days. In addition, customers receive a $100 cash bonus with a new AmSouth HELOC.

At least two communities in California's Central Valley have moved into "home price bubble territory" and are at high risk for price declines, according to ForeclosureS.com, a Fair Oaks, Calif.-based investment advisory firm.The communities of Modesto and Merced are the communities most vulnerable to a fall in home prices in the near to medium-term future and to the probability of a concurrent rise in mortgage defaults, said Alexis McGee, president of ForeclosureS.com. "Several economists, including building industry consultant John Burns of Irvine, rank Modesto as No. 1 among cities in the U.S. that are in a home price bubble," Ms. McGee said. "And Burns ranks Merced as No. 5." The company can be found online at http://www.foreclosures.com.

Freddie Mac acquired $62.54 billion worth of mortgages in September, its best purchase month of the year and its best showing since October 2003.September's purchase volume was the best of the year for the government-sponsored enterprise, but not by much. In August Freddie acquired $62.27 billion worth of mortgages. According to figures released by the company, its retained portfolio continues to grow at a nice clip and is being fed by the GSE's huge appetite for nonagency securities. At the end of September, Freddie had $235 billion in nonagency mortgage-backed securities on its books out of a total portfolio of $684 billion (34%). In January the ratio of nonagency investments to total portfolio holdings was 27%. Freddie Mac can be found online at http://www.freddiemac.com.

Irvine, Calif.-based Mavent has inked a deal to provide compliance services to Ocwen Financial Corp., West Palm Beach, Fla., a provider of mortgage servicing and loan processing services.Ocwen currently uses Mavent's flagship service, the Mavent Expert System, as a compliance tool for Ocwen's recently announced loan processing and due diligence services. Data received by Ocwen from its clients will be submitted to the Mavent system, where it will be automatically reviewed for compliance with local, state, and federal lending and purchasing regulations. The companies can be found on the Web at http://www.mavent.com and http://www.ocwen.com.

Housing interests represented at the Mortgage Bankers Association's annual convention have continued to line up against the possibility that the president's tax reform panel will propose whittling away at the tax deduction for mortgage interest and other cherished writeoffs that support homeownership.Freddie Mac president Eugene McQuade told the Orlando, Fla., convention that any big change in the tax benefits would "profoundly affect" the value of the properties that stand behind trillions of dollars worth of mortgages. "Before we say we are going to change" the deductibility of mortgage interest, "we better understand the broad implications that it will have [for] society," he told the meeting. Calling the writeoff "fundamental to housing values" and "arguably the most successful social program of the last 50-75 years," the Freddie Mac officer said the deduction "is part of the statement made over the years as to where we place our priorities, and with a relatively low cost to the government." Mr. McQuade is also worried that rising interest rates will exacerbate the nation's affordable housing woes. Housing prices are already "at shock levels for most people," he explained, and higher rates will only serve to drive monthly payments even higher. Rates have been so low for so long, he said, that an entire generation of potential buyers have never seen mortgage rates above 6%.

Major League Baseball has announced that it will spearhead an effort to build new homes for victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita through its support for Habitat for Humanity International.The official announcement of the program, Major League Baseball Rebuilds, will be tied in to the third game of the World Series Tuesday night in Houston. "In the wake of these devastating hurricanes, the baseball community joined together and took immediate action to aid victims in the Gulf Coast region, but the need to support the many people affected by this natural disaster remains a great task," said Allan H. "Bud" Selig, the commissioner of baseball. "Through this initiative, and with the help of our fans around the world, we hope to help the rebuilding and revitalization of the Gulf Coast region." Major League Baseball said it will join with Habitat to build eight houses during the World Series for victims of the two hurricanes.

The mortgage business faces a challenging -- not to mention lucrative -- future, according to Regina Lowrie, president of Gateway Funding and the new chair of the MBA.Of the 30 million new Americans expected over the next two decades, up to half will need a mortgage, Ms. Lowrie said at the group's rain-soaked annual convention in Orlando. The hard part will be accommodating them, for they will require $6-7 trillion in capital from the international markets. Ms. Lowrie called it "a huge challenge." In her inaugural address, she also took a swipe at President Bush's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, which has discussed the possibility of lowering the cap on the mortgage interest deduction from $1.1 million to $300,000-$350,000. "Enacting this proposal could turn a healthy housing market upside down," she told the convention. Such a change in policy would do nothing to increase the nation's homeownership rate or eliminate the ownership gaps between whites and nonwhites, she said. The tax reform panel's report is due on the president's desk no later than Nov. 1.

In her first official act as chair of the Mortgage Bankers Association, Regina Lowrie says she will create a new council to develop a "tactical plan" that will serve as a guide for the now 3,000-member trade group through the next decade.Described by the Horsham, Pa., lender as a "think tank," the panel of 15-20 members will include "some of the most accomplished leaders" in the housing finance field, Ms. Lowrie said at the MBA's annual convention in Orlando. She said she has "someone in mind" to chair the council but declined to name the person because he, or she, hasn't been asked as yet. Ms. Lowrie told MortgageWire that the group will consist of nonpartisan, independent thinkers who represent all facets of the "food chain," including large and small, commercial and residential, and all the production channels. The MBA's current three-year strategic plan is entering its second year, and Ms. Lowrie expects the council's report, due by the end of summer 2006, to set the framework for the trade group's next blueprint. "I think that, as the trade association that speaks for the housing finance industry, this is a major undertaking," she told MW. "This will be a big part of my legacy."

Class B-1 of Asset Backed Securities Corp. series 1999-LB1 has been downgraded from BB to CCC by Fitch Ratings.In addition, Fitch affirmed the ratings on four other classes in the ABSC deal. The rating agency attributed the downgrade to higher-than-expected collateral losses and deterioration in the relationship between loss expectations and credit support levels. The transaction consists of fixed- and adjustable-rate subprime mortgage loans, primarily on one- to four-family and multifamily properties. Fitch can be found online at http://www.fitchratings.com.

Operation Hope Inc., a nonprofit provider of financial literacy and other programs, and The First American Corp., a data provider, have announced the opening of a joint call center facility in Poway, Calif., that will serve as a virtual financial education and services center for credit and homeownership counseling.The call center will be located on First American's Poway campus and staffed by Operation Hope employees. In addition to its education and counseling functions, the center will promote Operation Hope's Banking on Our Future and Hope Coalition America programs. The center was first announced Oct. 4 as part of Project Restore Hope, a hurricane disaster assistance campaign developed in conjunction with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The organizations can be found on the Web at http://www.operationhope.org and http://www.firstam.com.