THIS JUST IN: Industry veteran Jess Lederman —who has done stints at Bear Stearns and Ohio Savings during his long career in mortgages —has apparently left Kinecta Federal Credit Union of Southern California where he was involved in a jumbo lending program. Lederman did not return a telephone call late this past week and a colleague said he was looking to get involved in a jumbo program at another firm...
LATE BREAKING ON FRIDAY: Not only do FHA lenders need to post more capital to play, but the Government National Mortgage Association is hiking the net worth minimum for issuers of its securities. Our story by Brian Collins appeared on the National Mortgage News website Thursday afternoon. If you have any thoughts about the hike drop Brian a line at
We should point out, by the way, that the largest players in the GNMA issuance business are the megabanks: Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup. But there are plenty of smaller players as well. For a complete list of all GNMA issuers in the U.S. see NMN's Quarterly Data Report. To order the QDR drop a line to
The ninth largest player in GNMA servicing is the now-defunct Taylor, Bean & Whitaker, formerly of Ocala, Fla. Its servicing is in the hands of the government. It's assumed that eventually Uncle Sam will auction off those servicing rights...
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: The pass-fail ratio for those taking loan officer exams for the first time is 81% for the federal test and 71% for their respective state quiz. When retake results are included, the overall pass-fail rate is 79% for the federal exam and 65% for the state test. (Reporting by NMN's Lew Sichelman.)
WASHINGTON NEWS: The Obama administration isn't waiting until the Senate confirms a director to head the new Consumer Finance Protection Bureau to begin implementing some of the most significant regulatory changes since the Great Depression. "Time is short," Peggy Twohig, director of the Treasury Department's Office of Consumer Protection Office, told state mortgage industry supervisors at their annual meeting late this past week. "We have a lot of work to do. We only have 12 months to get the CFPB off the ground. We don't have too much time to catch our breath." (See the NMN website for the complete story.)
I CONTINUE TO BE SORRY ABOUT THAT: The comment function on this column is still broken. In the meantime, you can e-mail me directly at
MAVERICK OF THE WEEK: Thomas Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, for saying that keeping interest rates at record lows is a "dangerous gamble" that could hurt the economy later on by unleashing inflation or new speculative bubbles.
DATA STUFF: The new 2Q edition of the Quarterly Data Report will be out in a few weeks. The QDR provides industrywide composite data on loan production and servicing and specific figures on the top 100, including delinquencies. A new feature for the QDR is our ranking of the nation's top FHA lenders. If you're looking for jumbo production numbers try the Alternative Products Quarterly Data Report. For more info on both drop an e-mail to
OUR RESEARCH REVEALS: GMAC —whose parent, Ally Financial, is expected go public some day —is the nation's sixth largest GNMA servicer with $42 billion, according to figures compiled by NMN for the Quarterly Data Report.
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THE LAST WORD: "Our base case assumption is that cumulative credit losses for the GSEs will be in the $200 billion range." — Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.
