Countrywide: Volume & Foreclosures Rise

Countrywide Financial Corp. funded $26 billion of mortgages in February, up 17% from the level recorded in January, but the company said foreclosures in its servicing portfolio continued to rise. The company's pipeline totaled $48 billion at the end of February, down from $51 billion in January. The company serviced $1.48 trillion of home loans as of Feb. 29. The delinquency rate on the servicing portfolio was 7.44% by dollar volume, down 3 basis points from the rate in January. However, foreclosures stood at 1.64% at the end of February, double the rate of a year earlier and up 16 bps from that of January. Countrywide also announced that it will no longer report monthly operational results and will report data quarterly, "consistent with industry practice." The company can be found online at http://www.countrywide.com.