THIS JUST IN: Bank of America has taken it on the chin the past two years (along with its stock price). Its "legacy" problems can be directly traced to its August 2008 purchase of Countrywide Financial Corp., which had $80 billion in problematic loans (home equity, nonprime, alt-A) on its books. It's safe to say the "House that Angelo" built has been a Trojan horse of trouble for the megabank. B of A's name has been dragged through the mud in regard to the foreclosure-gate scandal, and the firm recently announced that it was tossing its wholesale division overboard. But it does have some defenders, including Paul Rozo, CEO of PRMG Mortgage of California. "If it weren't for B of A there's a lot of nonbanks that wouldn't be around," he told us. In particular, Rozo is talking about the bank's warehouse lending business. According to the PRMG chief, B of A stepped in to fill the void when the warehouse market crashed in 2008 and 2009, extending and expanding lines of credit to many nonbank lenders. "They saved the day for a lot of lenders," he said. "Some of these [nonbank] players would be in deep trouble," he said. (PRMG is a warehouse customer of B of A, too.) So, what does B of A have to say about its warehouse lending program, believed to be the largest in the nation? Answer: Nothing. It doesn't discuss commitments, outstandings or anything else…
As for the warehouse business in general, we understand that at least one Wall Street firm has jumped back into the market and that Citigroup is somewhat active these days. If you have any intelligence about the issue drop me a line at
One last note about PRMG: It will be opening new operations centers in both Texas and Florida. I assume the company will be hiring…
And if you're looking for a ranking of the nation's top warehouse lenders as of Sept. 30, as well as listings on servicers, originators, subservicers, delinquency rates and more, the new 3Q edition of the Quarterly Data Report should be out later in the coming week. The data division of NMN has wrapped up its survey process. For more information about the QDR and a sister product called MortgageStats.com send an e-mail to
This past week there were unconfirmed reports that a mortgage surveillance vendor was getting out of the business, or at least scaling back…
The MSR market is heating up. The full story will be in the Monday edition of National Mortgage News along with a roundup by Brian Collins on the foreclosure crisis. To subscribe call 800-221-1809…
On Tuesday of next week in Washington I will be the luncheon speaker at a meeting being held by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. My topic is the future (but what else?) of the mortgage banking industry. I also may address the New York Giants, World Cup Soccer, the Mets and Nationals…
WASHINGTON NEWS: On Friday, NMN broke the news that the FHFA ordered Fannie and Freddie to make major cuts in their general and administrative costs for 2011. At this point we don't know how steep those cuts might go, but rest assured, that without these two GSEs (or something to replace them) there would be no mortgage market. Hopefully, the new Congress "gets it."
OTHER MATTERS: According to a story on Yahoo Finance, the student loan crisis looks "remarkably like the subprime mortgage crisis." Yahoo says, "First, outstanding student loan debt has ballooned. It grew roughly fourfold in the last decade to $833 billion as of June—surpassing outstanding credit card debt for the first time." The journalist who wrote the story forgot to mention that while you can foreclose on homes (which collateralize mortgages) you cannot foreclose on a human being.
MORTGAGE PEOPLE: Thomas F. O'Neill, a founding principal of Sandler O'Neill Partners, has joined a financial services company controlled by MBS co-inventor Lew Ranieri. Sandler will "play an integral role" across Ranieri's global business platforms, working with the firm's funds and operating companies. Ranieri operates a specialty servicer in Texas and has his hands in several other businesses.
READER COMMENT INFO: If you've trying to post a comment to this column and been frustrated, there's hope. Our tech department has updated the process, making it a little more user friendly. If you cannot get through, feel free to drop me an email directly at
DATA ANNOUNCEMENT: As I noted earlier in this blogum (column/blog), the new 3Q edition of the Quarterly Data Report will be out next week. We have 12 years of back issues. Many firms buy the QDR as a tool that aids them in making projections about the coming year. Site licenses also are available. Again, if you have questions drop an e-mail to
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THE LAST WORD: Maybe, just maybe, one of these days the FDIC will issue a press release on the fact that it sold $23 billion in servicing rights belonging to AmTrust. The deal closed about eight weeks ago. Maybe the agency needs to hire more PR officials.
