We all knew that former FDIC chief Sheila Bair was hardly a fan of loan brokers, but did we realize her former agency is now hunting down certain third-party salesman for loans they facilitated up to four years ago that later went bad? It’s true. The full story is in the Monday edition of National Mortgage News. Don’t subscribe to the website and paper? Call 800-221-1809…
Meanwhile, on Friday morning the NMN website broke the news that Bank of America is peddling $40 billion of mortgage servicing rights. With the bank now out of wholesale and reverse lending—and with it actively peddling MSRs—what will be the next shoe to drop for this mortgage giant? Does it even have any nonbank mortgage branches left from the old Countrywide days? Next week it unveils second quarter earnings. Its conference call should prove interesting…
All those worries about the commercial mortgage sector following residential down the rabbit’s hole of delinquency have turned out to be false. Why did commercial survive and not get nicked as badly? The answer is simple: Commercial lenders did make as many subprime loans, they underwrote the paper more conservatively, and Wall Street was less involved. Meanwhile, NorthMarq Capital recently provided NMN with its second-quarter commercial mortgage funding numbers. The firm originated $1.8 billion of loans, more than double what it did in the year ago period. For complete commercial rankings check out NMN’s MortgageStats.com product. For more information email
Which lender in the U.S. had the highest average loan size in 1Q? That would be Union Bank of San Francisco. For the complete ranking of high loan size lenders check out the Quarterly Data Report. Deartra (email above) can help you with that as well…
The QDR also offers statistical proof that the mortgage industry may be headed for deconsolidation. We’ve written on this topic before and will be doing an update shortly in the pages of NMN. Rest assured, some of the industry’s big boys are cutting back on correspondent purchases while others are jumping in. (See Monday’s edition for that story too and check out Bonnie Sinnock’s “Street Smarts” column, too)…
Interactive Mortgage Advisors, through its affiliate, Spurs Capital, continues to provide liquidity to originators holding loans that were kicked back by an aggregator. (These are tough times, folks.) In July it arranged for $5 million of fundings…
BOOK CORNER: New York Times reporter/columnist Gretchen Morgenson has a new book out on the economic/housing/mortgage crisis. It’s only the 200th book written on the mess, so: Zzzzzzzzzzzz… (I guess I just blew my chance of getting hired by the Times. I still may have a shot of joining The News of the World. What, they closed?)
WASHINGTON NEWS: Should the GSE loan limits expire come Oct. 1? Two congressmen from high-cost housing states don’t think so and have introduced legislation to extend the maximum $729,750 loan limit on government-backed loans for another two years. The reduction in the loan limit would impact 669 counties. (Reporting by NMN’s Brian Collins.) For the full story visit
THE DEBT CEILING CRISIS UPDATE: So, will the mortgage industry (along with the rest of the U.S. economy) crash and burn on Aug. 2 if there is no debt deal? In last week column’s I laid out what might happen (20% mortgage rates, 30% unemployment). But one GOP lobbyist I know thinks one-third of the Tea Party Republicans will fall in line and that a crisis will be averted. As for a longer-term solution that’s easy: cut costs (which reduces expenditures) and raise revenue. It sounds so easy—and it’s just like running a business. But how many of our elected officials even know what running a business is like?
MORTGAGE PEOPLE: As reported first on the NMN website, Todd Chamberlain has decamped as EVP of residential lending at Regions Financial, landing at PNC Mortgage. Up until recently PNC hated the mortgage business. How times change.
MUST ATTEND MORTGAGE CONFERENCES: On Sept. 19-20 NMN and SourceMedia will hold its Mortgage Regulatory Forum show at the Washington Marriott in the nation’s capital. Speakers include OCC chief John Walsh, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and some congressman from Massachusetts whose last name is Frank. More info visit
IMPORTANT DATA STUFF: MortgageStats.com has just been updated to include not only full-year 2010 figures but first quarter information as well. MortgageStats boasts the nation’s top 400 lenders and servicers, including hard volume numbers and contact information. It also includes exclusive monthly analysis from me. (You can’t get this information anywhere else.) For more information drop an email to
I'm
THE LAST WORD: On Sunday the U.S. will beat Japan 2-0. Take it to your bookie.
