Servicing

The Treasurer of Cuyahoga County, an area that includes the city of Cleveland, has declared a tax foreclosure moratorium on owner occupied homes for all of 2010. In an interview with National Mortgage News county treasurer Jim Rokakis said he is not heard "one complaint or comment" from the mortgage industry about the moratorium. A week ago the moratorium was set for six-months but Mr. Rokakis this week changed his mind and made it for the full year. "I have a year left in office and I refuse to do even one more foreclosure," he told NMN. The moratorium only affects mortgagors who have not paid their real estate taxes. Over the past 10 years more than 100,000 homes in the county have entered foreclosure, said the treasurer. "We have 35,000 vacant properties here," he said. "And 17,000 or so are slated to be demolished." During the height of the housing boom subprime lenders, including Ameriquest and Argent, made thousands of loans in the county, some of which were used by speculators to flip homes for a quick profit.

The Government National Mortgage Association is contemplating selling the $1.3 billion residential servicing portfolio that it recently seized from Lend America of Melville, N.Y. An agency spokeswoman confirmed that GNMA recently took control of the receivables and placed it with a subservicer — Loan Care Servicing Center of Norfolk, Va. "We just completed the transfer and are performing our due diligence," she said, adding that "We cannot make a determination on the sale of servicing rights until that process is completed. Of course any final decision will be made based on what is in the best interest of taxpayers." Investment banking sources say the portfolio is suffering from higher than average delinquencies. GNMA and FHA suspended Lend America last month. The company laid off most of its work force and is no longer funding new loans.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. hopes to complete the sale of AmTrust's $20 billion servicing portfolio some time in the second quarter, according to an agency spokesman. "It will be done through a competitive auction process," he added but could not provide further details because it is too early in the sale process. Interested bidders are expected to include some of the nation's top 10 ranked servicers but also private equity firms that have entered the space the past two years or are looking for an entry point, said investment banking officials. The FDIC spokesman said he had no information regarding the future of AmTrust's servicing platform. The government took control of AmTrust Bank of Cleveland a month ago, selling its branches and some of its assets to New York Community Bank. NYCB, said the spokesman, agreed to service AmTrust's portfolio for "up to a year while we looked for a buyer [of the servicing rights]."

The Federal Reserve must be open to raising rates to pop future asset bubbles, even though stronger regulation remains the best solution to prevent a repeat of the nation's financial crisis, Fed chief Ben Bernanke said over the weekend. The nation's central banker said all efforts should be made to strengthen the U.S. financial regulatory system to prevent a repeat of a crisis that Mr. Bernanke described as perhaps the worst in modern times. "However, if adequate reforms are not made, or if they are made but prove insufficient to prevent dangerous build-ups of financial risks, we must remain open to using monetary policy as a supplementary tool," Mr. Bernanke told an annual meeting of the American Economic Association.

Interactive Mortgage Advisors expects roughly 20 different investors to submit applications to clear them for bidding on an $11 billion jumbo servicing portfolio that belongs to the bankrupt Thornburg Mortgage of Santa Fe. IMA managing member Tom Piercy said interest in the receivables has been strong with potential bidders including hedge funds, private equity money and existing residential servicing firms. "Interest has come from across the board," said Mr. Piercy. To be deemed suitable, investors must submit an application package by Monday afternoon. Each bidder must have a minimum net worth of $15 million. The portfolio has average loan balances of $650,557 and a weighted average FICO score of 740. A subservicing firm is currently doing the paperwork on the loans.

In lieu of cash bonuses for 2009, the board of Wells Fargo & Co., San Francisco, Calif., has approved multimillion-dollar retention performance shares for three key executives, including the head of Wells Fargo Home and Consumer Finance, Mark Oman. Mr. Oman, a senior executive vice president, and Howard Atkins, also a senior EVP as well as well as the company's chief financial officer, both got approved for a target of 189,800 shares having a current value of about $5 million. The board approved for John Stumpf, president and chief executive officer, a target of 379,600 shares having a current value of about $10 million. "These retention performance shares, which are not a form of cash compensation or annual incentive bonus, are forfeited if the executive receiving the shares leaves the company to work for a competitor," Wells said. The shares will vest after three years of service only if the company meets specified performance goals. A portion of all shares earned by executives as compensation must be held for as long as they remain employed by the company. Steve Sanger, chair of the board's human resources committee and retired chairman and CEO of General Mills Inc., said the executives receiving the compensation have been "leading the company through the largest merger integration in U.S. banking history and they have played key roles in generating record profits in the first three quarters of 2009, despite the challenging economy." Commenting on the rationale behind the performance shares, he noted that given those accomplishments and "the current challenges impacting the banking industry, Wells Fargo executives, at all levels, are being increasingly and aggressively recruited by competitors."

GMAC Financial Services has used a $3.8 billion capital infusion from the Treasury Department to take a $2 billion writedown on its mortgage assets and pursue options that could include the sale of Residential Capital. GMAC also made a $2.7 billion capital contribution to ResCap in the form of mortgage loans, debt forgiveness and cash. "These decisive balance sheet actions and resulting capital infusions are intended to minimize the impact on GMAC and Ally Bank of any future losses related to ResCap's legacy mortgage business," GMAC chief executive Michael Carpenter said. (ResCap was known as a subprime and Alt-A mortgage lender before that market died.) The CEO also noted these actions will allow GMAC to "pursue strategic alternatives" with respect to ResCap and the mortgage business. "We expect to consider various possible options," company spokeswoman Gina Proia said when asked about a possible sale. "There are no special plans at this time," she added. Losses due to ResCap's mortgage operations totaled $3.9 billion for the first three quarters of 2009, including a $747 million loss in the third quarter. In propping up ResCap, GMAC also took a $500 million "repurchase reserve expense" for mortgage buyback demands from investors who claim the loans they purchased from ResCap violate representations and warranties. GMAC took a similar $515 million expense in the third quarter. ResCap and its mortgage affiliates originated $15.4 billion in residential loans in the third quarter - predominantly Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Federal Housing Administration product. It is a top-10 mortgage servicer with a $380 billion servicing portfolio.

Fitch Ratings has downgraded 293 classes and affirmed 246 classes in 82 U.S. scratch and dent residential mortgage-backed securities transactions. "Many of these transactions contain collateral that was seasoned and/or seriously delinquent at the time of the transaction's issuance," Fitch said of the transactions, which have issuance dates ranging from 1997 to 2007. The deals were comprised at the time of issuance of some combination of performing, reperforming, subperforming, or nonperforming collateral.

Marc Paul and Robert Robotti, co-founders of the Los Angeles-based SCI Real Estate Investments, are launching TREO Capital Group, Inc., a real estate firm that aims to help buyers capitalize on opportunities in today's residential foreclosure market. Along with principals Janice Jay, Berto Gonzalez, Jay Belson, Matt Epstein, Joel Adelman, Michael Sihilling and Dieter Hochheimer, the TREO real estate team has developed a process to monitor and purchase distressed-priced residential real estate at auctions in Los Angeles County. TREO principals have already purchased over 30 homes for prospective buyers. "Currently there are thousands of distressed-priced homes scheduled for auction each week in LA County alone," said Mr. Paul, president, who is also the former head of the foreclosure divisions of Merrill Lynch Realty and Prudential California Realty. "The challenge for buyers is that most are unable to track all the homes scheduled for auction, analyze all the market and sales data, perform a title search and make a decision to buy ... oftentimes in a matter of hours." The company said most of its clients acquire multiple properties each month seeking to earn yields that can regularly exceed 30% IRR. Messrs. Paul and Robotti's SCI Real Estate Investments has a nationwide portfolio with over $2 billion worth of residential and commercial properties.

To expedite sales of foreclosed properties, Fannie Mae says it will accept a buyer's purchase offer without notifying the servicer and before it determines whether the lender has to reimburse the secondary market agency for any losses. According to a December 24 servicing guide, Fannie Mae will accept a purchase offer "whether or not" the mortgage quality assurance review has been completed. "If, after completion of the review, Fannie Mae determines that the mortgage loan did not meet its eligibility or underwriting requirements and Fannie Mae has incurred a loss by selling the property, the lender will be required to fully reimburse Fannie Mae for its loss," according to Fannie Announcement 09-38. During the first three quarters of 2009, Fannie has taken control of 98,400 single-family or real estate owned properties and sold 89,700 REOs.